A Win

What happens when you win in court but you get short changed by the court ruling?

That happened to a professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University to a trans woman.

Transgender professor ordered reinstated with tenure at university in Oklahoma by federal court
A panel of three federal judges determined Rachel Tudor deserves her old job as a tenured-track professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.
NBC News
By Antonio Planas
September 14, 2021


A transgender professor who was denied a promotion more than a decade ago must be reinstated with tenure at Southeastern Oklahoma State University because the school discriminated against her, a federal court ruled this week.

Rachel Tudor, who was fired from the university in 2011, won a landmark civil rights discrimination case in 2017 in which a jury awarded her more than $1 million in damages.

Although she was granted tenure during the 2009-10 academic year by a faculty committee of five in a 4-1 vote, the university’s administration denied her promotion to associate professor, according to a federal ruling from three judges filed in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Given the jury verdict in favor of Dr. Tudor, it is established — and we cannot now question — that Dr. Tudor would have been granted tenure in 2009-10 absent the discrimination,” the ruling stated. “We are instead restoring Dr. Tudor to the position she would have been in had Southeastern not engaged in prohibited discrimination against her.”
[…]
A jury in 2017 found Tudor was discriminated against by her former employer and rewarded her $1.1 million in damages. That was reduced to about $360,000 in capped damages, according to the lawsuit.

It appears that the court didn’t figure in the promotion that she should have received so she went back to court and the university didn’t rehire her.

The Okahoman said…

After being fired, transgender professor wins job back at Southeastern Oklahoma State University
By Josh Dulaney
September 14, 2021


An appeals court this week ordered Southeastern Oklahoma State University to reinstate a transgender professor who alleged the school in Durant wrongfully denied her tenure.

In its 55-page ruling Monday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the university’s challenge of an Oklahoma City federal court jury’s decision to award Rachel Tudor more than $1 million in damages after determining she lost tenure because of her gender.

The appeals left in place a statutory $300,000 damages cap, but ordered lower courts to recalculate her attorneys’ fees and lost wages due.

The Oklahoman made the verdict clearer than NBC article and the Oklahoman went on to say,

Tudor, who is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, claimed she was subjected to unfair rules related to where she could use the bathroom and what she was allowed to wear on campus.

The defendants contended there was no evidence of discrimination and Tudor didn’t want to earn her tenure.

Jurors found the defendants discriminated against Tudor when she was denied tenure during the 2009-2010 application cycle and when she was denied the opportunity to reapply in the following cycle. The jury also found the defendants retaliated against Tudor by denying her the opportunity to reapply.

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that we are covered Title VII of the Civil Rights Act under sex discrimination.

The deck is stacked against the employee by the courts, it has become harder to prove discrimination in federal courts.

Supreme Court Raises Bar to Prove Job Discrimination
New York Times
By Steven Greenhouse
June 24, 2013


In two decisions issued on Monday, the Supreme Court effectively made it harder for workers to prove that they had suffered employment discrimination.

One ruling narrows the definition of what constitutes a supervisor in racial and sexual harassment cases, while the other adopts a tougher standard for workers to prove that they had faced illegal retaliation for complaining about employment discrimination.

In both cases, the rulings were decided by a 5-to-4 majority, with the dissenting justices, the court’s four most liberal members, calling on Congress to fix what they said were overly restrictive rulings.

I have always suggested that if you think you are being discriminated against keep a logbook on all the incidents because you can bet your bottom dollar the company is. A notebook with numbered pages and a record of the date and time along with the incidents will go a long way to prove your case in court.