Markham Et Al. v. Geller

1981-06-15

Headline: Court denies review of a ruling that a school district’s policy favoring less-experienced teachers violates federal age-discrimination law, leaving limits on budget-driven hiring decisions and protections for older applicants in place.

Holding: The Court denied review and left intact the lower-court finding that the school board's policy of favoring less-experienced teachers violated the federal law banning discrimination because of age.

Real World Impact:

Limits school districts’ ability to favor less-experienced hires for budget reasons.
Protects older applicants with more years’ experience from such neutral hiring rules.
Leaves the appeals-court ruling in effect while no Supreme Court review was granted.

Topics: age discrimination, hiring rules, teacher hiring, school budgets

Summary

Background

A 55-year-old art teacher applicant with 13 years’ experience applied for a job in the West Hartford school system. The opening was filled by a 26-year-old with three years’ experience. The school board had a cost-saving "sixth step" policy to recruit teachers below the salary grade reached after five years of experience.

Reasoning

At trial, the applicant presented statistics showing a large share of teachers aged 40–65 had more than five years’ experience. The District Court instructed the jury that the policy was discriminatory and the jury found for the applicant. The Court of Appeals treated the case like a wrongful-impact claim and held the board could not justify the rule as a necessary cost-saving measure, relying in part on a Labor Department regulation. The Supreme Court declined to review that ruling, so the lower-court finding remains in effect for now.

Real world impact

Because the high court denied review, the appeals-court result—finding that a neutral, experience-based hiring rule violated the age-discrimination law—stands for the parties. The ruling affects how school districts and other employers may use experience-based, budget-driven hiring limits. This outcome is not a final Supreme Court ruling on the law and could change if a future case reaches the high court.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Rehnquist dissented from the denial of review, arguing the appeals court erred. He said the policy did not reference age and that the statute allows "reasonable factors other than age," so he would have granted review.