Dive Brief:
- A longtime employee of an Indiana school district couldn’t show he was denied a promotion because he is White, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held Oct. 19 (Groves v. South Bend Community School Corp., No. 21-3336 (7th Cir. Oct. 19, 2022)).
- The employee had been working as a high school athletic director for 10 years when he applied for a newly created, districtwide director of athletics position, according to court documents. The district superintendent, who is Black, selected a Black high school athletics coach for the job. He said he did so because the coach allegedly interviewed very well and he believed the coach would repair the district’s relationship with the state high school athletic association. By contrast, the employee allegedly interviewed poorly, seeming to boast about firing coaches, and his department had faced compliance issues.
- The 7th Circuit upheld summary judgment for the school district. The superintendent’s assessments, “subjective though they may be, were entirely proper, especially given the absence of anything in the record suggesting that considerations of race influenced [his] decision,” the court said.
Dive Insight:
Job interviews can reveal a lot about a prospective hire. For example, asking targeted questions lets interviewers better evaluate a candidate’s qualifications, work experience and industry knowledge, a post from Indeed pointed out. Interviewers can also better determine a candidate’s proficiency in soft skills, such as communication, problem-solving and teamwork, the post said.
Interviews are important for another reason: An interviewer’s assessment can back up a hiring decision, as it did in this case. The White employee argued that he was far more qualified than the Black employee due to his lengthy tenure as a high school athletic director. But he was “only looking at half of the evidentiary picture,” the 7th Circuit explained.
He may have been the more qualified candidate on paper, the court noted. “But the School District explained that side-by-side resume comparisons were not the only measure. How applicants performed in interviews greatly mattered, and on this score, the record showed [the Black employee] outperformed [the White employee] by a long shot,” it said.
In a 2021 ruling, interview notes helped an Indiana university defeat an older applicant’s age discrimination claim. Although the notes included a comment that the plaintiff was “looking for a retirement job,” they also indicated that the applicant lacked a “plan to develop kids” and “a well thought out philosophy,” the 7th Circuit explained in the case.
Even though the university prevailed, the case also cautions interviewers about making assessments that could indicate a hiring decision was motivated by discriminatory beliefs. Employers can prevent interviewing missteps, such as turning off a candidate or triggering a lawsuit, by making sure the interviewers are properly trained, HR Dive recently reported.
Employers also have to be careful about provoking feelings of illegal favoritism, which sometimes happens when an employee in one protected class loses out on a prestigious assignment to a co-worker in a different protected class. To protect against such perceptions — and a loss in court — employers should curb discriminatory comments and behaviors, particularly from decision-makers.
For example, in a July ruling, the 7th Circuit rejected the claim of a White firefighter who argued that his captain favored Blacks and refused to let him be the sole driver of a fire truck — a higher paying assignment — because of his race. There was no evidence the captain, who is Black, “ever mentioned race or disparaged White people,” the court said.
By contrast, last year a federal jury awarded a White former executive $10 million after concluding that race and sex were motivating factors in his termination. He alleged that despite having a good record, he was fired without warning and replaced by two women, one Black and one White.
In an August 2022 post-trial order, a federal trial court slashed the award to $300,000 in accordance with the Title VII cap on damages. But the court upheld the verdict and ordered that the executive be paid $2.34 million in back pay and $1.07 million in front pay.
