Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—10th Cir.: Principal demoted over ‘loss of staff confidence’ fails to revive disparate treatment, sex stereotyping claims, (Jul 20, 2026)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

The court also affirmed summary judgment against her Equal Pay Act claim, finding the school district’s reliance on experience justified the wage disparity.

Affirming summary judgment on a demoted school principal’s Equal Pay Act claim, the Tenth Circuit found that while the district court erred by requiring her to prove pretext, no rational jury would disagree that the school district based her salary on relevant experience, a factor other than sex. The appeals court, finding she failed to establish she was similarly situated to a male principal who was treated differently, also affirmed summary judgment on her equal protection disparate treatment claim. Finally, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of JMOL on her disparate treatment and Title IX claims (Maccagnan v. Cherry Creek School District No. 5, No. 25-1335 (10th Cir. July 17, 2026)).

Hired as a teacher in 1996, the plaintiff was promoted to principal in 2014. She received positive performance evaluations and, four years later, became the principal at a different elementary school. During her second year there, her supervisor received complaints about the principal from staff and parents.

Listening tour. In 2019, school staff requested that the teachers’ union conduct a “listening tour,” which revealed division amongst staff, negativity in the school, lack of relationships between staff and the principal, micromanagement, and fear of retaliation. In March 2020, the supervisor met with school staff and her notes from that meeting reflected critical and negative comments about the principal.

Demotion. The district superintendent ultimately accepted the supervisor’s recommendation to demote the principal to assistant principal the following school year based on “loss of confidence of staff.” The principal took leave under the FMLA and then retired.

Lower court proceedings. She sued the district and various individual defendants alleging, among other things, violations of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, the EPA, and Title IX. Her Section 1983 equal-protection claim against the individual defendants based on disparate treatment and her Title IX claim against the school district based on disparate treatment and stereotyping went to trial but, after she rested her case, the district court granted judgment as a matter of law on the equal protection and Title IX claims.

Equal pay claim. Appealing summary judgment against her EPA claim, the principal argued that the school district improperly adjusted her “experience credit” to pay her less than male administrators. Here, the court observed that the school district set salary ranges for each administrative position and determined a salary within each range based on various criteria including experience.

In 2018, the district hired a consulting company to conduct a market analysis of the salaries and it recommended a salary for each administrator based on the relevant experience. Before the consulting company’s review, the principal had received a credit for 16.5 years of experience, but the company recommended adjusting that credit to 10.5 years because her Coordinator of Online Learning position did not fall within the credited relevant-experience categories and the school district adopted the recommendation.

In granting summary judgment against this claim, the district court found the principal failed to provide evidence of pretext. Although the appeals court found the district court, by requiring the principal to establish pretext, departed from the EPA’s “form of strict liability” and improperly relieved the defendants of their burden under the Act, it nonetheless affirmed the lower court’s judgment. The school district established that it computed salaries, including the principal’s, based on set salary ranges and years of relevant experience and experience is a “factor other than sex” under the EPA.

Nor was the principal able to show the relevant experience calculation was a pretextual justification. The school district hired a neutral, third-party consultant to conduct a market analysis, the company recommended reducing the principal’s experience credit because it was not relevant, only particular positions qualified for relevant experience, and the district “did not give anyone else coordinator experience in 2018” after the company’s market analysis, the court explained, affirming summary judgment against this claim.

Section 1983 equal protection claim. Appealing summary judgment against her equal protection claim based on disparate treatment, the principal argued that the district court first denied summary judgment in its written opinion but then improperly granted it in a “turn-about” oral ruling during the final pretrial conference. The appeals court, however, found that while the district court may have insufficiently explained its reasoning in its oral ruling, any error that may have been made when it granted the school district’s motion for partial summary judgment was cured by its subsequent clarification of the ruling. Thus, the court affirmed summary judgment against the principal’s equal protection disparate treatment claim.

Comparator evidence. The principal proceeded to trial on her surviving Section 1983 equal protection claim against three individual defendants and her Title IX claim against the school district. On appeal, she argued that the district court erred in excluding evidence about a similarly situated male principal. Although a listening tour had also reported similar concerns about him, he received coaching and was not demoted until almost two years later when the listening tour concluded the staff had lost confidence in him.

Finding that the district court did not err in excluding evidence about the male principal, the appeals court explained that he was not similarly situated to the plaintiff as they had different supervisors and those supervisors made the disparate decisions on how to treat them. And while the deputy superintendent supervised both direct supervisors, she was not involved in their decisions. “Requiring the same supervisor for admissibility here was not error because the direct supervisors were solely responsible for the differential treatment,” the court stated.

Supervisor’s notes. The principal also challenged the district court’s admission of the supervisor’s notes from staff meetings in March 2020 arguing they should have been excluded under hearsay and unfair prejudice rules. Noting that the district court admitted the notes, not for their truth, but for their effect on the individual defendants’ state of mind when deciding to demote the principal, the appeals court explained that it has “held that similar third-party statements were admissible as non-hearsay in employment discrimination cases to establish their effect on a decision-maker’s state of mind” and the district court properly admitted the notes for the same reason here.

As to the principal’s contention the notes’ prejudicial effect substantially outweighed any probative value under Rule 403, the district court found the notes were probative of the reason for the principal’s demotion—lack of staff confidence—and the appeals court found no abuse of discretion in admitting them.

JMOL. Finally, the principal appealed the district court’s grant of JMOL on her equal protection disparate treatment and Title IX claims and sex stereotyping on her Title IX claim. As to her disparate treatment claim, the court rejected her contention that excluding the comparator evidence prevented her from proving differential treatment. Noting that a district court’s consideration of a Rule 50 JMOL motion and its review of the district court’s ruling are both limited to the evidence admitted at trial, the appeals court explained that it could not consider the comparator evidence that was excluded at trial even though it was part of the summary judgment record.

Further, said the court, trial evidence indicated that the principal was demoted because the listening tour showed loss of staff confidence and staff interviews revealed largely negative feedback; the school district demoted a similarly situated, female principal because a listening tour showed loss of staff confidence and staff interviews revealed negative feedback; and it demoted two male principals for loss of confidence and other performance issues and they were not offered contracts to return in any position the following school year. This evidence, said the court, failed to raise a jury issue on disparate treatment.

Stereotyping. Nor did the district court err in granting JMOL on the principal’s sex-stereotyping Title IX claim, said the appeals court. She relied on comments from unknown sources and from the listening tour such as “being told how to behave” that she needed to be more nurturing, more visible, more caring, and words such as “power wielding,” intimidating,” and “harsh.” But even assuming the “power wielding,” “intimidating,” “harsh,” and “nurturing” comments reflect sex stereotypes, said the court, they did not appear in the listening tour’s written summary and the principal did not identify any other source for those purported comments. Without any evidence of who made those comments and in what context, the court found her testimony about them had little or no probative value.

As for comments in the listening tour summary such as lack of collaboration, micro-management, and lack of communication, the court found these were plainly gender neutral on their face. Rejecting the principal’s argument that the words were sex stereotypes because they “describe[] a successful male” and women “are supposed to be caretakers, kind,” the court explained that her own conclusory belief the words connote stereotyping was not enough and she offered no cases or other support to corroborate her subjective belief.

Nor was she able to show a nexus between the allegedly discriminatory statements and the decision to demote her. The school staff requested the listening tour; the union, not the school district, conducted it; and the individuals making the comments did not decide or have authority to demote her. Further, there was no indication the listening tour summary was an important part of the demotion decision. The superintendent testified that he “would not take employment action based on [a Listening Tour] alone,” and there was significant other evidence showing that a loss of staff confidence led to the demotion decision.

Based on all this, the court affirmed the judgment of district court.

The case is No.25-1335.

Judge: Matheson, S.

Attorneys: Patricia S. Bangert (Law Offices of Patricia S. Bangert) for Linda Maccagnan. Michael Brent Case (Semple, Farrington, Everall & Case) for Cherry Creek School District No. 5, Scott Siegfried, Jennifer Perry, Brenda Smith, and Kelly Bates.

Companies: Cherry Creek School District No. 5

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