''Piscataway School Board v. Taxman'', 91

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1547 (

3d Cir. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * Easte ...

1996) is a

United States labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and employers, especially employers "org ...

case on

racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...

, that began in 1989 against the

Piscataway Township Schools The Piscataway Township Schools is a community public school district that serves students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade from Piscataway, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. In addition to its high school, there are fou ...

Facts

The school board of

Piscataway Piscataway may refer to: *Piscataway people, a Native American ethnic group native to the southern Mid-Atlantic States *Piscataway language *Piscataway, Maryland, an unincorporated community *Piscataway, New Jersey, a township *Piscataway Creek, Ma ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

needed to eliminate a teaching position from the high school's Business Education department. Under New Jersey state law,

tenure Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

d teachers have to be laid off in reverse order of

seniority Seniority is the state of being older or placed in a higher position of status relative to another individual, group, or organization. For example, one employee may be senior to another either by role or rank (such as a CEO vice a manager), or by ...

. However, the board faced a problem, as the district's least senior tenured teachers, Sharon Taxman (a white teacher) and Debra Williams (an African-American teacher), had started working at the school on the same day, and thus had equal seniority. In the interest of maintaining racial diversity (Williams was the only African-American teacher in the department, and 50% of the students were minorities), the school board voted to lay off Taxman. Taxman complained to the

EEOC The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination ...

, saying that the board had violated

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...

, and was given authority to file suit against the board.

Judgment

The

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * East ...

ruled in favor of Taxman.

Significance

The school board appealed to the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

and a hearing was scheduled for January 1998, but civil rights groups, fearing that the case could lead to the prohibition of affirmative action, provided money for the board to settle the case out of court, so the case was never heard. Biskupic, Joan
"Rights Groups Pay To Settle Bias Case"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', November 22, 1997, p. A01 . Accessed June 19, 2007. Taxman was subsequently rehired, and later reassigned to Conackamack Middle School. Williams retired at the conclusion of the 2009–2010 school year.

Notes

External links

96-679 In the Supreme Court of the United States

* Education in Middlesex County, New Jersey United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit cases United States employment discrimination case law 1996 in United States case law United States public employment case law Piscataway, New Jersey United States affirmative action case law Termination of employment United States racial discrimination case law {{US-case-law-stub

Facts

Judgment

Significance

See also

Notes

External links