A federal appeals court has revived a Chicago teacher’s claim that her transfer from a full-time position as a bilingual teacher was in violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Chicago, ruled unanimously that Valerie T. Filar, who was 69 in 1999 when she was moved to a full-time substitute’s position, should have a chance to prove her age-discrimination claim in a trial court.
“Because the only salient difference between Filar and the younger teachers was age, a jury
could conclude that age motivated [the principal’s] decisions” to keep a 42-year-old and 39-year-old teacher in full-time positions instead of Filar, the court said in its May 22 decision in Filar v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago.