A federal district court in Alabama recently allowed a female teacher’s gender discrimination claim to proceed upon her sufficient showing that a school district preferred male employees as a driver’s education teachers. A female teacher in Mobile County, Alabama sought a driver’s education teaching position to allow her more free time to pursue coaching opportunities. She was turned down for two driver’s ed jobs and was told by school officials that male employees were preferred because they could also coach male sports. At a motion for summary judgment in federal court, the school district countered the plaintiff's claim, saying that the actual reason for the decisions was that the male employees had “good working relationships with the administrators at each school” and were held in high esteem. The Southern District of Alabama found that the plaintiff showed that the district’s reasons were pretextual because the jobs were never posted or interview procedures followed. The case is Shaw v. Mobile Cnty. Pub. Sch. Sys., No. CIV.A. 14-0111-CG-B, 2015 WL 419805 (S.D. Ala. Feb. 2, 2015).
