United States

The plaintiff, a female professor sued the defendant, alleging that her salary raises were less than those of comparable male professors in violation of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII. At trial, both parties’ experts provided statistical evidence based on multiple regression analyses controlled to eliminate any observed gender disparity, including rank, years of service, division, tenure status, and degrees earned. Both experts found a difference in pay between comparable men and women, but disagreed about the statistical significance of that difference.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Massey v. Dorning, 611 F. Supp. 3d 1301 (N.D. Ala. 2020), examined gender discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims brought by Sonya Massey, a deputy sheriff in Madison County. Massey alleged that the Sheriff’s Office fostered a culture hostile to women, where female employees faced sexual harassment, unsafe assignments, and retaliatory actions for reporting misconduct.

The plaintiff-appellants’ sons were members of their middle school basketball team who were victims of sexual harassment by their teammates. The harassment ranged from arguably innocent locker room pranks to sexual violence. The plaintiffs sued the Wayne County Board of Education, alleging that the school board was deliberately indifferent to student-on-student sexual harassment in violation of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. The District Court denied the defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and awarded the plaintiffs $100,000 each in damages.

Two school districts scheduled their girls’ high school soccer season in the spring and the boys’ high school soccer in the fall. The effect of that schedule was that boys but not girls were able to compete in the regional and state championship games. Parents of the female students sued the school districts pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 and 20 U.S.C. section 1681 (“Title IX”), which requires schools, among others, to provide equal athletic opportunities to its male and female students.

Plaintiffs sued the board of trustees of the City University of New York (“CUNY”), alleging that CUNY discriminated against its female professors because it paid them less than its male professors, pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. section 2000e (“Title VII”). As evidence, Plaintiffs provided statistics about the faculty’s pay that demonstrated that the female professors were paid less.

In Morris v. Bessemer City Board of Education (N.D. Ala. 2020), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama reviewed claims of employment discrimination and retaliation brought by Connie Morris, a former athletic director.

The Illinois Human Rights Commission (HRC) filed a suit against Northtown Ford alleging discrimination against an employee who had been terminated with regard to sick leave benefits and salary, sex discrimination for reduction in salary, and retaliation. The administrative law judge entered a judgment in favor of the employee for salary claims and sick leave benefits, and the HRC affirmed. The Court of Appeals decided that the employee was allowed to amend the complaint because the amended claim was reasonably related to the original claim.

Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015) is a U.S. Supreme Court case holding that under the Fourteenth Amendment states must both license marriages between two people of the same sex and recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other states.

Plaintiffs brought a class action lawsuit against Sweetwater Union School District (the “District”) and several individuals, alleging unequal participation opportunities for females at Castle Park High School (“CPHS”).  Plaintiffs argued that Defendants violated Title IX’s provision that prohibits excluding or discriminating against anyone on the basis of sex in educational programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.  The court applied a three-part test to determine whether the District complied with Title IX which included: (1) substantially proportionate at

Otey v. Director of Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, (N.D. Ala. 2017) is a U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama case where a federal constitutional challenge to the state’s Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act (SORCNA) was considered.