Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEX—S.D. Miss.: Police officer, pulled from SWAT team, failed to show sex discrimination, (May 21, 2025)

By Ursula Furi-Perry, J.D., MBA

She failed to demonstrate that similarly situated male officers were treated more favorably under “nearly identical” circumstances.

A former police officer who sued for sex discrimination, after she was denied reinstatement to the department’s SWAT team following criminal charges against her after she broke two windows at another officer’s residence following relationship issues, failed to demonstrate that similarly situated male officers were treated more favorably under “nearly identical” circumstances, a federal district court found. The defendants articulated a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for denying the plaintiff’s reinstatement—her admitted criminal conduct—and she failed to prove pretext (Thomas v. City of Jackson, No. 3:23-CV-545-DPJ-ASH (S.D. Miss. May 15, 2025)).

Windows incident. A former police officer sued her department, alleging sex-based employment discrimination after she was denied reinstatement to the department’s SWAT team. The plaintiff originally joined the SWAT team in 2017, but an incident involving her romantic relationship with another officer led to criminal charges after she broke two windows at the other officer’s residence following relationship issues; although the other officer at first filed charges, he later dropped them.

Physical encounter, disclosure, and resignation. Subsequently, the other officer initiated an unwanted physical encounter with the plaintiff in a police elevator. During the investigation of that incident, the other officer disclosed the broken windows to the department’s chief, who instructed the SWAT commander to remove the plaintiff if the allegations were true. After admitting her conduct, the plaintiff voluntarily resigned from the SWAT team but continued in other roles at the department.

Unfit. Several months later, the plaintiff reapplied to the SWAT team, but the chief informed the commander that she was unfit for what he considered to be an elite unit, due to her “criminal history.” The plaintiff contended this rationale was pretextual and that the real reason for denying her reinstatement was her sex, and that the chief, the city, and the department therefore violated her rights.

Lawsuit. She brought claims under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for equal protection violations in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Initially, the plaintiff’s claim was a part of three civil actions that were brought by six different plaintiffs, alleging civil rights violations and state-law torts by the police department, but after the other named plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit, only the plaintiff was left. The defendants moved for summary judgment.

Comparator issue. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants after applying the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework for Title VII and Section 1983 sex-discrimination claims. While the defendants conceded that the plaintiff was a member of a protected class and qualified for the position she sought, and while the court assumed that the plaintiff established an adverse employment action, it found she failed to demonstrate the fourth element: that similarly situated male officers were treated more favorably under “nearly identical” circumstances.

The plaintiff had offered two comparators, unnamed male officers allegedly involved in more serious misconduct, and one named male officer. However, the court held that she failed to provide evidence identifying or substantiating the unnamed males’ circumstances, without which “there is no way to know whether these men were treated better under nearly identical circumstances, and so no ‘material fact issue’ exists,” the court held. There was no evidence the named officer was on the SWAT team at the relevant time or that he faced criminal charges—both material distinctions, the court stated. Additionally, a domestic incident that involved the named male officer had occurred under a different police chief years earlier, making the comparison legally insufficient.

Legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. The court also found that the defendants articulated a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for denying the plaintiff’s reinstatement: her admitted criminal conduct. The burden then shifting back to prove pretext, the court found that the plaintiff’s own admission to breaking windows, and the chief’s reliance on that fact, rendered the justification credible. The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that dropped charges equated to innocence, as the department’s decision was based on admitted conduct, not a conviction. The fact that she was the only woman on the SWAT team was probative in some contexts, the court stated, but the plaintiff still had not offered any legal analysis suggesting that this fact met her burden of proving pretext.

The case is No. 3:23-CV-545-DPJ-ASH.

Judge: Jordan, D., III.

Attorneys: Abby Gale Robinson (Law Offices of Abby Robinson) for Cossandra Thomas. Claire Barker, Office of City Attorney, for The City of Jackson.

Companies: The City of Jackson

Cases: SexDiscrimination Discrimination Discharge PublicEmployees MississippiNews