Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISRIMINATION—3d Cir.: Professor, subjected to contract non-renewal following discrimination complaint, partially revives claims, (May 6, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

The college denied her request to teach remotely following childbirth as it did not wish to establish a precedent, although it had granted similar requests to male faculty members.

Reversing a lower court’s grant of summary judgment against the gender discrimination and retaliation claims brought by a college professor following the non-renewal of her contract, the Third Circuit, in a nonprecedential opinion, found a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence could lead a jury to conclude that discriminatory bias more likely than not motivated the college’s decision. The non-renewal decision came just three weeks after the professor had indicated that she would soon file a formal charge of discrimination with the EEOC (Sorokina v. The College of New Jersey, No. 24-1365 (3d Cir. May 5, 2025, nonprecedential)).

Born in Ukraine, the plaintiff in this case was a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Finance at The College of New Jersey’s School of business, a position that she held from 2016 to 2020.

Initial interview. The professor had first applied for a position in the department in 2015. One of the department professors who was part of the search committee and interview team commented about the professor’s appearance during the initial interview. The committee ultimately offered the position to a male candidate, although it later offered a recently opened position to the professor shortly thereafter, which she accepted.

“Blended” teaching request. In 2017, the professor became pregnant. That summer, she requested an accommodation to teach her Spring 2018 courses in a “blended” manner—teaching in person once a week and fulfilling the remainder of her teaching duties online. The request was denied, with the college explaining that it “do[es] not teach blended courses during the academic semester and there is no desire to establish that precedence.”

When interviewed later, the decisionmaker stated that, “Being pregnant and teaching a blended course could have posed a problem. It is not easy to schedule and plan when you are pregnant.” He also acknowledged that the college had permitted two male professors to teach online when they were living abroad, although he characterized those decisions as “experimental.”

MBA program. In 2018, the professor helped develop a new MBA program at the college. However, that fall she was removed from the program and a notice of removal was placed in her file. The college cited unsatisfactory contributions and unprofessional conduct. Specifically, it stated that the professor would not accept that she be allowed to teach only one MBA course, could not use an undergraduate textbook, and could not obtain and use Bloomberg terminals for the course due to cost constraints.

Miscarriage. After again becoming pregnant, the professor suffered a miscarriage in November 2018. She submitted no evidence that anyone at the college knew she was pregnant at this time.

Complaint. In December 2018, the professor shared concerns of discrimination with a college EEO officer, leading to an initial investigation. That same month, she informed the college that she had “initiated a filing” with the EEOC, alleging pregnancy and national-origin discrimination.

Another miscarriage. An April 2019 obstetrics report described the professor as being pregnant with less than eight weeks gestation. That pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage and there again was no evidence that anyone at the college was aware that she was pregnant.

Non-renewal. Tenure-track professors are initially hired for a three-year term. At the end of the second year, they must apply for reappointment to a fourth year. If they successfully obtain reappointment, they proceed to a third-year review process involving four levels of evaluation, in this instance beginning with the Finance Department’s Promotion and Reappointment Committee (PRC).

The professor was reappointed to a fourth year. During the third-year review process in April 2019, the PRC recommended that she not be reappointed, citing deficiencies in her teaching and performance, including her removal from the MBA program.

On April 10, 2019, the professor provided a written response to the PRC’s recommendation, claiming it was issued in retaliation for her report of discrimination. A PRC member admitted knowing that the professor had made a report of discrimination but denied knowing the details of the report. The professor filed an EEOC charge of discrimination based on sex, gender, pregnancy, national origin and retaliation on April 16, 2019.

After proceeding through the various levels of review, the college opted not to renew the professor’s contract. It completed its investigation into her internal EEO complaint in July 2019, determining that there was no evidence of discrimination or retaliation.

Lawsuit. In November 2019, the professor sued the college alleging Title VII claims for discrimination and retaliation. The district court granted summary judgment for the college on all claims. This appeal followed.

National-origin discrimination. First, the court determined that the professor failed to establish a prima facie case of national-origin discrimination. Although the college initially opted to hire a professor of non-Ukrainian origin and later replaced the professor with another non-Ukrainian hire, there was no evidence that the decisions were motived by an anti-Ukrainian bias.

Pregnancy discrimination. The professor also failed to establish a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination with respect to the non-renewal of her contract. She failed to show that any of the participants in her contract renewal discussion knew of her two pregnancies that had ended in miscarriages.

Gender discrimination. As to the professor’s gender discrimination claims, she alleged two adverse employment actions: (1) her removal from the MBA program; and (2) her contract non-renewal.

MBA removal. Assuming without deciding that the professor had established a prima facie case for gender discrimination regarding her removal from the MBA program, the court found the college had articulated several legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for its decision. The professor failed to show that these proffered reasons were pretextual, and thus her claim for gender discrimination on this basis failed.

Pretext and non-renewal. As to her gender discrimination claim as it related to the contract non-renewal, it was undisputed that the professor had established her prima facie case and that the college had proffered legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for its decision. However, the professor was able to establish evidence of pretext based on the denial of her request for blended teaching during the Spring 2018 semester.

The college’s reasons for the denial lacked credibility, said the court, pointing to its stated desire to avoid establishing a precedent, despite allowing two male professors to conduct classes online while living abroad.

Further, one of the PRC members made a comment about the professor’s appearance during her initial interview process, which could lead a reasonable jury to infer gender bias, and to disbelieve the PRC’s explanations for its recommendation. It could also find that this discriminatory bias infected the higher levels of review. As such, the court determined that a jury could find a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence that discriminatory bias motivated the college’s decision not to renew the professor’s contract, and thus reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment against this claim.

Retaliation. Finally, with regard to the retaliation claim, the court found that this claim too withstood summary judgment. The professor engaged in protected activity when she reported her discrimination claim to the college in December 2018. She later made follow-up communications in March 2019 detailing her allegations and her intention to file a claim with the EEOC. Three weeks later, the PRC recommended that the college not renew her contract, and at least one PRC member knew of the professor’s complaint.

This adverse recommendation satisfied the prima facie requirements of the professor’s claim, and the temporal proximity between the protected conduct and the adverse recommendation supported an inference of causation. Further, the non-renewal decision could be characterized as an adverse employment action.

Just as a jury could find that the discriminatory bias infecting the PRC’s recommendation was a proximate cause of the non-renewal, it too could find that retaliatory animus also played a role in the PRC’s recommendation. Accordingly, the lower court’s grant of summary judgment against this claim was also reversed.

The case is No. 24-1365.

Judge. Freeman, A.

Attorneys: Sergey J. Litvak (Litvak Legal Group) for Nonna Y. Sorokina. John P. Cascio, Office of Attorney General of New Jersey, for The College of New Jersey.

Cases: Discrimination NationalOrigin PregnancyDiscrimination SexDiscrimination PublicEmployees Retaliation DelawareNews NewJerseyNews PennsylvaniaNews