By: Derek Hawkins//July 6, 2017//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Pamela D. Ferrill v. Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District, et. al
Case No.: 15-3805
Officials: POSNER and SYKES, Circuit Judges, and YANDLE,
District Judge
Focus: Wrongful Termination – Title VII Violation
Pamela Ferrill was hired as the principal of Edgewood Elementary School in the Oak Creek- Franklin Joint School District for an initial two-year term with an automatic third-year rollover unless the Board of Education opted out. Ferrill is black; the school district serves two predominantly white suburbs on the southern edge of Milwaukee County. During her tenure as principal, the Edgewood staff had exceedingly low morale, and Ferrill was plagued with multiple performance complaints.The retaliation claim fails for lack of evidence connecting the Board’s decision to activity protected by Title VII. Even with that generous assumption, Ferrill’s claim fails for lack of evidence of causation. To prevail on a retaliation claim requires “proof that the desire to retaliate was the but- for cause of the challenged employment action.” Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 133 S. Ct. 2517, 2528 (2013). As we’ve explained, the evidence establishes beyond dispute that Dr. Burmeister’s recommendation that the Board opt out of the contract rollover was motivated by Ferrill’s persistent resistance to improving her performance, which spanned the entirety of her two-year tenure and was confirmed by an independent consultant. Ferrill asserts that Dr. Burmeister would not have taken this step but for a desire to retaliate against her for complaining about racism at the school. The record does not support that assertion.
Affirmed