Title VII Violation – Discrimination

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Molly Joll v. Valparaiso Community Schools

Case No.: 18-3630

Officials: FLAUM, RIPPLE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Title VII Violation – Discrimination

Plaintiff Molly Joll is an accomplished runner and an experienced running coach. She applied for a job as the assistant coach of a high school girls’ cross-country team. The high school hired a younger man for the job but invited Joll to apply for the same position on the boys’ team. So she did—and the high school hired a younger man again. She filed this suit for sex and age discrimination. After discovery, the district court granted summary judgment for the school district, concluding that Joll had not offered enough evidence of either form of discrimination to present to a jury.

We reverse the dismissal of Joll’s sex discrimination claim. The district court appears to have erred by doing what we have repeatedly said a court should not: “asking whether any particular piece of evidence proves the case by itself,” rather than aggregating the evidence “to find an overall likelihood of discrimination.” Ortiz v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 834 F.3d 760, 763, 765 (7th Cir. 2016). Joll offered evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find that the school district used hiring procedures tilted in favor of the male applicants, applied sex-role stereotypes during the interview process, and manipulated the criteria for hiring in ways that were inconsistent except that they always favored the male applicants. A reasonable jury might also find no sex discrimination, but on this record, the decision belongs to a jury.

We recognize, of course, that there are ways to tell the story of the school district’s hiring process and decision that are entirely innocent, involving no unlawful discrimination. The dissenting opinion illustrates several ways the defense could argue this case to a jury. But because there is at least one reasonable way to tell the story in favor of Joll’s claim of sex discrimination, a jury rather than appellate judges must choose among them. The grant of summary judgment for the defendant on Joll’s age discrimination claim is AFFIRMED. The grant of summary judgment on the sex discrimination claim is REVERSED and the case is REMANDED for trial on that claim.

Affirmed in part. Reversed and remanded in part.

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.