Employment Issues

On April 22, 2020, the US Appellate Court for the Third Circuit issued its decision in Ali v. Woodbridge Township School District et. al., No. 19-2217 (3^rd Cir. 2020) affirming the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to a school district, Board of Education, superintendent, and principal. Plaintiff, Jason Ali, who is of Egyptian descent and a non-practicing Muslim, was a non-tenured history teacher at Woodbridge High School alleged in his suit that he was terminated on the basis of his race, ethnicity, and religion. For his world history class, Ali posted links to articles on a school-sponsored website such as “Article in Saudi Daily: U.S. Planned, Carried out 9/11 Attacks—but blames others for them” and “The Jews are like a Cancer. Woe to the world if they become strong”. Ali also taught Holocaust denial theory to his students. When a reporter questioned the principal about the links on the website, the principal responded that he would take them down and investigate. Ali was fired the next day. Ali’s lawsuit alleged violations of employment anti-discrimination laws, hostile work and environment and violations of his First Amendment rights to free speech and academic freedom.

The Federal Appellate Court found that Defendants articulated three non-discriminatory reasons for Plaintiff’s termination, which included his dissemination of links to anti-Semitic online articles through the school’s official channels, Ali’s showing of no remorse for his conduct, and his teaching holocaust denial theory to his students. The Court found the reasons to be legitimate and non-discriminatory. The Court also found that Ali’s First Amendment rights were not violated because “teachers do not have a protected First Amendment right to decide the content of their lessons or how the material should be presented to their students.” Please click below to read the Court’s opinion.

On September 24, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division released a final rule concerning overtime, effective January 1, 2020, that will increase the salary threshold, by approximately 50%, that so-called “white collar” employees must be paid in order to be classified as “exempt” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Employees who do not meet the new heightened salary threshold of $684 per week (which equates to $35,568 per year) will be considered non-exempt and thus eligible for overtime pay. The DOL estimates that this change will impact approximately 1.3 million workers.

In an opinion letter issued on August 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour opined that parents attending school meetings concerning individualized education programs (IEPs) for children with serious health conditions triggers intermittent FMLA leave protection.

On September 5, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an official memorandum rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed certain individuals to receive deferred action from deportation and eligibility for temporary U.S. work permits. The change has impact across many U.S. employers, including school districts. This discussion offers a summary of the key aspects for employees covered by DACA and their employers.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Vance v. Ball State which further clarified what constitutes a “supervisor” under Title VII. In this case, the court held that an employer can be held vicariously liable under Title VII for the acts of its supervisors, i.e., those employees who are empowered to take “tangible employment actions: hire, fire, reassign and other actions resulting in substantive employment changes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court made equally clear that even if the employee does not have such power, courts are entitled to see the employee as a supervisor if the employer relies on the employee to make those substantive employment decisions. Read the case summary now to see how this decision may impact your school district.

Isolated incidents of offensive and boorish behavior that is not perpetrated because a hostility to race of gender will not support hostile work environment claims. In this case from The Federal Court of Appeals in New York, the court clearly establish the elements of a successful claim and describes the necessary elements of a retaliation claim. This case will help your school district to understand the elements of such a cause of action to derail such claims before they manifest.