Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—PREGNANCY—N.D. Ala.: Teacher turned down for several positions advances bias claim in large part, (Feb 26, 2025)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

The Board hired three candidates who lacked the required certifications over the employee in violation of its written policy that a candidate seeking employment was required to have a valid Alabama teacher’s certificate.

A federal district court in Alabama has ruled that pregnancy discrimination claims brought by a teacher against a county board of education can proceed to trial with respect to three of four positions she sought but was denied. In one case, the teacher could not show that the applicant hired was unqualified and the court granted summary judgment to the board with respect to that claim. However, said the court, her evidence that the candidates selected for the other three positions were not qualified under the board’s written hiring policy sufficed to create a dispute of material fact that a jury must resolve (Standridge v. Blount County Board of Education, No. 2:23-cv-1021-ACA (N.D. Ala. Feb. 24, 2025)).

The employee was hired as a special education collaborative teacher at the Blount County Learning Center in 2018. In 2022, she began applying for positions at other schools. By this time, she had four children and had gone through two pregnancies while employed at the Learning Center.

Hand full. The first position she applied for was a position teaching transitional kindergarten at the Cleveland Elementary School. Before the first interview, the employee’s son, a student at the school, revealed to the principal that the employee was pregnant. The principal told the employee, “Oh, my gosh, you are going to have your hands full.” The principal continued to make frequent comments about how many children the employee was going to have, particularly as her pregnancy became more visible.

The principal testified that the second interview also did not go very well. She felt the employee was more interested in leaving the Learning Center than trying to come to Cleveland Elementary School. The principal ended up recommending another applicant for the position. That applicant had graduated with a bachelor’s degree and was planning to enroll in a master’s program but did not have either a general education or special education certificate by the time of the interview.

The applicant received her early childhood education certificate in June 2022 (before the school year began) and an interim certificate in special education in March 2023 (after the school year had begun). The principal testified that she recommended the applicant for the position because she had a strong interview, completed her residency at Cleveland Elementary School and then worked as a substitute teacher for a first grade classroom there for the rest of the school year, had experience working at a pre-K center, had a son with autism, and expressed a desire to continue her education in special education. The board approved the recommendation.

The Learning Center also had a transitional program called “Crosswalks.” One of the jobs the employee applied for was a K-3 and K-4 Crosswalks position. The director of the Learning Center conducted the interviews for this position. By this time, the director knew that the employee was pregnant. He recommended another applicant for the Crosswalks position. This applicant had a Virginia teaching certificate but no Alabama teaching certificate. The director testified that he recommended her because he was impressed by her interview, she had great references, and she wanted to be at the Learning Center.

You know what causes pregnancies, don’t you? During the employee’s fourth and fifth pregnancies, the director made comments like, “well, you know what causes [pregnancy,] don’t you?” He also asked if her family had cable, from which the employee inferred that he meant, “If you don’t have cable, all you do is have sex.” And he also made comments about five kids being a lot of kids.

The employee also applied for a position at Locust Fork Elementary School. The principal of that school and the employee attended the same church and both served in the choir, though that principal knew her by her nickname instead of her legal name. The applicant recommended for that position had worked at Locust Fork for two years as an instructional aide, and then completed her student teaching there.

When the principal recommended this applicant for the position, she had finished her coursework for a bachelor’s degree in elementary education but had not yet received her degree or a teacher’s certificate. The board accepted the recommendation and offered the position to the applicant. The applicant received her degree in December 2022 and her teacher’s certificate in April 2023.

The employee then applied for a position as a kindergarten teacher at Cleveland Elementary School. Because of the employee’s two previous interviews at that school, the principal decided not to invite her to interview for the position. The principal recommended another applicant for the position. This applicant had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and was enrolled in a master’s program due to conclude the following year, but did not have any teacher certifications. The principal attested that she selected the applicant because she seemed like she would work well with younger children and she had experience as a camp counselor and a substitute teacher for kindergarten and first grade. The board accepted the recommendation.

The employee attested that the applicants for the four positions she applied for were not pregnant when the board hired them or during the 2022–2023 school year. The employee brought suit, alleging that the failure to hire her for the four positions was pregnancy discrimination, in violation of Title VII. The board moved for summary judgment on the ground that the employee could not prove discrimination.

Transitional kindergarten position. The court first considered the transitional kindergarten position at Cleveland Elementary School. The employee argued that the selected candidate was unqualified for the position because she lacked a special education certificate until March 20, 2023. However, the undisputed evidence was that the transitional kindergarten position did not require a special education certificate. And the selected applicant received the required certificate—an early childhood certificate—in June 2022, before the school year began.

The court found that the employee failed to present evidence from which a jury could find that the selected applicant lacked the required qualifications. The board presented evidence the principal selected the applicant because she had a better interview, had worked at Cleveland Elementary School before, had a child with special needs and had worked at a pre-K center, and was continuing her education in special education.

By contrast, the principal felt that the employee’s interview went badly and that she wanted to leave the Learning Center more than she wanted to work at Cleveland Elementary School. The principal’s interview notes did not contradict her testimony about her impression of the employee’s interview. And “a subjective reason for an employer’s action—such as poor interview performance—can be as legitimate as any other reason,” the court noted. Thus, no reasonable jury could find pretext in the proffered reasons for selecting the applicant over the employee.

Accordingly, the court granted the motion for summary judgment as to the employee’s failure-to-hire claim about the transitional kindergarten position at Cleveland Elementary School.

Other positions. The other three positions were different, the court stated. Taking the disputed facts in the employee’s favor, all three of the interviewers knew she was pregnant when she applied for those positions. And although the principal of the Locust Fork school testified that she did not know the employee had applied, there was evidence that a mutual friend notified the principal of the application. Based on this evidence and the fact that her last name was not very common, the court determined that a jury could reject the principal’s explanation that she did not recognize the employee’s name.

Moreover, the board hired three candidates who lacked the required certifications over the employee who had the required certifications. This was in violation of the Board’s written policy that “[a] candidate seeking employment... must have... a valid Alabama teacher’s certificate.” Although the Board presented evidence that it routinely hires candidates who lack that qualification as long as they are eligible to receive a certificate, it was still a violation of the written policy, the court stated.

And despite the Board’s assertion that the employee also lacked a teacher’s certificate when it hired her, she had an interim certificate when hired. The employee’s evidence that the candidates were not qualified under the written hiring policy sufficed to create a dispute of material fact that a jury must resolve, the court held.

Accordingly, the court denied the motion for summary judgment with respect to the employee’s failure-to-hire claim about the Crosswalks position, the Locust Fork position, and the kindergarten position at Cleveland Elementary School.

The case is No. 2:23-cv-1021-ACA.

Judge: Axon, A.

Attorneys: Christina Maxine Malmat (Wiggins Childs Pantazis Fisher & Goldfarb) for Glenda Katlyn Kon Standridge. Anne R. Yuengert (Bradley Arant Boult Cummings) for Blount County Board of Education.

Companies: Blount County, Alabama, Board of Education

Cases: PregnancyDiscrimination Discrimination AlabamaNews