- What are the two elements that an employee must show to make a successful Title VII claim? Do you think the ‘motivating factor’ standard is appropriate for discrimination claims based on national origin?
- Are employers allowed to treat employees who file claims of discrimination differently after the claim has been made? What sort of actions may be construed as retaliation against an employee? How might an employer avoid actions that can be perceived as retaliation?
- Does the School District have either a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) or a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason (LNDR) for requiring Vega to teach the bilingual classes? Would it matter if Vega were the only teacher in the school with the appropriate language skills to teach these students? Would this case come out differently if three Spanish-speaking White teachers with less tenure than Vega were not required to teach any bilingual classes?
Issue: Whether a school district and principals discriminated against a high school math teacher because of his Hispanic ethnicity, violating § 1983 and Title VII and then retaliated against the teacher after he complained of discrimination.
Facts: Vega, a high school math teacher, alleges that his school district and two principals discriminated against him because of his “Hispanic ethnicity” and that they retaliated against him after he complained of discrimination. The district court found that Vega had not “demonstrated that he suffered an adverse employment action” and therefore he had not “established a prima facie case of discrimination;” and that he had failed, with respect to his claims of retaliation, “to establish an adverse action taken against him” or “a connection between the alleged retaliatory acts and his ethnicity.”
Decision: The Second Circuit found that the Complaint plausibly pleads under both Title VII and § 1983 that Defendants discriminated against Vega by assigning him, on or after the time-bar dates, to classes that required additional preparation because they had large numbers of Spanish-speaking students. The Courth further found that some of these actions of the school district following Vega’s complaint, considered individually, might not amount to much. Taken together, however, they plausibly paint a mosaic of retaliation and an intent to punish Vega for complaining of discrimination.
