Four Black women over the age of forty served as assistant principals in Harford County Public Schools until they were reassigned following a county-wide reduction in force in 2019. The school board implemented a new '2019 Reassignment Plan' requiring all assistant principals to reapply for their positions based on resumes, video responses, and supervisor references. None of the plaintiffs were selected, and they subsequently filed suit alleging discrimination based on race, sex, and age under Title VII and the ADEA, as well as retaliation for filing discrimination complaints and taking protected medical leave under the FMLA. The district court granted summary judgment to the school board, finding no genuine issue of material fact, and the plaintiffs appealed to the Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit applied the burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green to analyze the plaintiffs' claims. First, the court assumed without deciding that the plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of discrimination. However, the court found that the school board successfully articulated legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for not selecting the plaintiffs, specifically citing their lower interview scores, less favorable supervisor references, and lower rankings on principals' applicant lists. The court emphasized that the second step of the framework is one of production, not persuasion, and the board met this burden. At the third step, the burden shifted back to the plaintiffs to prove that these reasons were pretextual. The court concluded that the plaintiffs failed to produce evidence sufficient to create a triable issue of fact regarding pretext. Regarding disparate impact claims, the court held that while the plaintiffs alleged the plan disproportionately affected Black women, they failed to identify an available alternative employment practice that would serve the board's legitimate business necessities with less disparate impact. On the retaliation claims, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to establish a causal relationship between their protected activity and the adverse employment actions. For Title VII and MFEPA claims, there was insufficient evidence that the board was aware of the protected activity at the time of the reassignments. For FMLA claims, while temporal proximity existed for the initial reassignment, the plaintiffs failed to prove pretext. Furthermore, the court found that the significant lapse of time between the end of the plaintiffs' medical leave and their exclusion from subsequent applicant pools was too long to infer causation.
The decision reinforces the high evidentiary bar for plaintiffs seeking to prove pretext in employment discrimination cases where an employer has articulated specific, non-discriminatory reasons for its actions. It clarifies that plaintiffs must propose viable alternative employment practices to succeed on disparate impact claims. Additionally, the ruling limits the scope of retaliation claims by emphasizing that temporal proximity alone is insufficient to establish causation when significant time has passed between the protected activity and the adverse action. The case is remanded with instructions to enter judgment in favor of the defendants, effectively ending the litigation for the plaintiffs.
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