Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCHARGE—E.D. Okla.: Bank risk officer, allegedly fired due to anti-mother, anti-Methodist bias, advances myriad of claims, (Feb 23, 2026)

By Marjorie Johnson, J.D.

She claimed a senior exec told her she couldn’t manage her staff because she “had a daughter at home,” publicly interrogated her about an anxiety-induced nosebleed, made anti-religious remarks, and impeded her fraud-deterrence duties.

A bank’s risk officer, who was fired after complaining that the chief operating officer (COO) tied criticisms of her performance to her motherhood responsibilities, made intrusive medical inquiries regarding her anxiety and depression and related medications, and expressed hostility toward her Methodist faith, beat a motion to dismiss her Title VII and ADA claims of gender-plus, religious, and disability discrimination and retaliation. A federal magistrate judge also allowed her claim of wrongful termination in violation of Oklahoma public policy to advance to discovery, concluding that she identified a state law with a clear fraud-deterrence objective and tied her termination to her alleged protected conduct, which included reporting that the COO repeatedly failed internal phishing-test exercises and undermined the bank's information-security efforts (Murphy v. Vision Bank, No. 6:25-cv-145-JAR (E.D. Okla. Feb. 19, 2026)).

Top risk officer. The employee worked at the bank since 2003, receiving several promotions along the way. In 2019, she began serving as the senior operational risk officer and had responsibility for bank-wide risk assessments and information-security controls. In this role, she reported to the COO.

Superior’s hostility. The employee claimed the COO criticized her workload, attributed perceived performance deficiencies to her childcare responsibilities, stripped her of her supervisory duties, and publicly disparaged female subordinates and mothers, while similarly situated male executives and fathers were not demoted or publicly criticized, and in some instances were promoted. She also claimed that during her February 2024 performance-review meeting, the COO told her she lacked the ability to manage her staff because she “had a daughter at home,” and then after the meeting, interrogated her in front of colleagues about an anxiety-induced nosebleed and her medical history. In addition, the COO allegedly expressed hostility toward her Methodist faith and toward other employees whose Christian beliefs were visible in the workplace, while not directing similar hostility toward the bank’s Southern Baptist president.

Fails phishing test. In late 2023, the employee conducted a phishing test as part of her duties. The COO failed the test and then sent a bank-wide email characterizing it as illegitimate. In response, the employee documented the senior executive’s conduct as undermining internal controls and information-security efforts, identified her as a repeat offender, and reported a separate security incident.

HR complaint. On February 16, 2024, she submitted a written rebuttal of her performance review to HR in which she recounted the COO’s comments regarding her daughter and overtime, intrusive medical inquiries, undermining of her credibility and information-security efforts, and concern that staff were “upping” antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications.

Fired. The bank hired a third-party consultant to investigate. The employee cooperated fully, including a one-hour interview on May 16. On June 26, she met with the bank president, the HR leader, and the consultant and was advised that her allegations could not be corroborated. After she again complained that the bank had engaged in legal wrongdoing, the president left without speaking and the HR leader became confrontational. She was terminated the next day.

Sex-plus discrimination. Declining to dismiss the employee’s Title VII “sex-plus-motherhood” claim, the court found she plausibly alleged her termination occurred under circumstances suggesting sex-plus discrimination. In particular, she claimed her supervisor told her she lacked the ability to manage her staff because she “had a daughter at home” who prevented her from working overtime and then removed her supervisory duties, targeted other female executives and mothers by disparaging their performance and pushing them out, and allowed at least two similarly situated men with children to retain their supervisory roles and granted one a promotion. This differential treatment allowed a reasonable inference that her sex and her status as a mother were at least motivating factors in her termination.

Religious bias. She also plausibly alleged that her religion was a motivating factor in the decision. Amongst other things, she claimed her supervisor repeatedly voiced hostility toward her Christian faith and her membership in the Methodist Church, criticized the church's withdrawal from the United Methodist Conference, and made repeated, consistent, and open anti-religious remarks. She also claimed the senior executive targeted Christian subordinates with disparaging comments and adverse actions, while not directing similar adverse treatment at the bank’s Southern Baptist president. “Hostile remarks by a decisionmaker tied to a protected trait, combined with differential treatment of similarly situated employees, can support an inference of discriminatory motive,” stated the court.

Disability bias. She also stated a plausible claim of disability discrimination. First, she alleged that her anxiety and depression substantially limited her major life activities of concentrating, sleeping, and interacting with others. She also claimed her supervisor repeatedly questioned her about the names and dosages of medications and reacted to a visible manifestation of her anxiety by publicly interrogating her about her medical history and stripping her of her supervisory responsibilities, while not treating nondisabled staff in the same manner. Thus, she plausibly connected adverse actions to manifestations of her anxiety and to her supervisor's scrutiny of her mental-health conditions.

Retaliation. Also declining to dismiss her Title VII and ADA retaliation claims, the court found that she engaged in protected activity when she complained about sex, parental, and disability discrimination and hostility in her rebuttal to her performance review. Significantly, she alleged that she was terminated less than 24 hours after the June 26 meeting in which she again raised her discrimination concerns. This one-day temporal proximity was sufficient to establish causation.

Public policy claim. Finally, the court denied the bank’s bid to dismiss her state-law claim alleging it terminated her in violation of Oklahoma public policy (a so-called Burk claim) by firing her because she reported internal control violations in an attempt to discourage fraud under Oklahoma Administrative Code § 85:10-5-2(d). This state law provides in relevant part that, “An objective in any bank or trust company control program is to discourage fraud, not necessarily to discover its existence. A program of safeguards must be implemented to meet this primary objective.”

The employee claimed that in furtherance of this fraud-deterrence objective, she reported that a senior executive repeatedly failed internal phishing-test exercises and undermined the bank's information-security efforts, and that a staff member improperly uploaded confidential customer information into ChatGPT in violation of internal controls previously reviewed by the board. She alleged she documented these concerns, including in a report to the administrative risk committee, and was terminated the day after she reiterated these concerns during the June 26 meeting. She also alleged there is no other adequate statutory remedy to vindicate the banking-fraud-deterrence policy embodied in the state law.

The bank argued that the law was too general to constitute a "clear mandate" of public policy and that the internal controls listed in the statute concerned only traditional audit and ledger controls. However, the court concluded that, “[w]hether phishing-test regimes and controls on uploading customer data to AI tools are among the ‘safeguards’ and ‘internal checks and controls’ contemplated by § 85:10-5-2(d) and related provisions is better resolved on a fuller factual record.”

The case is No. 6:25-cv-145-JAR.

Judge: Robertson, J.

Attorneys: Kellee Boulais Kruse (Employment Law Group) for Meredith Murphy. Courtney Bru (McAfee & Taft) for Vision Bank.

Companies: Vision Bank

Cases: Discharge DisabilityDiscrimination ReligiousDiscrimination SexDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation StateLawClaims TortClaims OklahomaNews