Keith v. Talladega City Bd. of Educ., Case No. 1:18-CV-01311-KOB
| Decision Date | 10 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 1:18-CV-01311-KOB |
| Parties | JANNIE KEITH, Plaintiff, v. TALLADEGA CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Alabama |
When Jannie Keith initiated this employment discrimination case against the Talladega City Board of Education, she was a nearly thirty-year veteran teacher, coach, and athletic director for multiple schools in the Talladega City school system. For the purposes of this case, Ms. Keith's first twenty-four years in the Board's employ were uneventful. But in 2013, Ms. Keith began asking questions about her compensation—specifically, the supplemental compensation the Board paid her for coaching and for serving as Talladega High School's athletic director.
According to Ms. Keith, the Board paid her less for her coaching and administrative services than it did Charles Miller, another longtime Board employee who also coached, taught, and served a stint as athletic director. And after the Board terminated her as athletic director, Ms. Keith filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC that grew into this action, alleging that the Board discriminated against her on the basis of sex. The Board also subsequently terminated Ms. Keith as Talladega High School's softball coach. She remains employed by the Board as a teacher.
Now, both Ms. Keith and the Board have filed motions for summary judgment on Ms. Keith's claims, which she brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act based on the Board's pay and termination decisions. Because Ms. Keith has not produced sufficient evidence to carry her burden of "persuading the trier of fact that the [Board] intentionally discriminated against" her, the court will DENY Ms. Keith's motion (doc. 29) and will GRANT the Board's motion (doc. 26). See St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507 (1993) (emphasis added).
Plaintiff Jannie Keith began working for defendant Talladega City Board of Education in 1989, but the Board's pay and termination decisions that she challenges in this lawsuit all occurred between the 2009-2010 and 2016-2017 school years. In the 2009-2010 through the 2012-2013 school years, Ms. Keith worked as a teacher for the Board, coached various sports, and acted as Talladega High School's assistant athletic director. (Doc. 28-1 at 12-25). Ms. Keith—and all other coaches in the Talladega City school system—received supplemental pay for coaching or for serving as an athletic director or assistant athletic director. (Doc. 28-1 at 2).
Until the 2009-2010 school year, the Board calculated coaching supplements at least in part based on the coach's teaching contract. For some sports, such as football and basketball, the Board would pay the coach a certain amount per month as a coaching supplement but would also pay the coach an additional month or months of teaching pay. For those sports, the Board multiplied a set monthly coaching supplement amount by the employee's teaching contract length; the Board's standard teaching contract lasted for 9 months, but other employees, such as principals and assistant principals, received 12-month contracts. Then, the Board would pay the coach an additional month of teaching pay determined entirely on the coach's teaching contract.For other sports, including softball and volleyball, the Board paid the coach a fixed annual supplement. (Doc. 28-1 at 1-2, 9-10; doc. 28-5 at 6). The court will refer to this supplement scheme as the "Old Schedule."
Starting in the 2009-2010 school year, the Board adopted a new supplement schedule for coaches, which the court will call the "New Schedule." Under the New Schedule, the Board set fixed annual supplement amounts by sport. The head boys' and girls' varsity basketball coaches, for example, both received $8,000 in supplemental pay per year under the New Schedule. The New Schedule operated independently of the coach's teaching contract, unlike the Old Schedule. But—and importantly for the purposes of this case—the Board, at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year, allowed its veteran coaches to elect whether to remain on the Old Schedule or to switch to receiving the supplements provided for by the New Schedule. (Doc. 28-1 at 2-3, 36). Finally, the Board paid $3,255 per year to its athletic director and assistant athletic director under both the Old and New Schedules. (Doc. 28-1 at 9, 33).
Charles Miller worked as the athletic director at Talladega High School from the 2009-2010 school year through the 2012-2013 school year and signed an 11-month contract to perform those duties. Mr. Miller also coached boys' varsity basketball and golf at the same time as he served as athletic director. At the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year, Mr. Miller signed a 12-month contract to become Talladega High School's assistant principal. The Board required Mr. Miller to stop coaching golf and to vacate the athletic director position after he became assistant principal; Mr. Miller still coached boys' varsity basketball and elected to receive supplemental compensation for that position from the Old Schedule. Mr. Miller remained on the Old Schedule until the start of the 2016-2017 school year. (Doc. 28-1 at 3-4, 15; doc. 28-5 at 6).
Ms. Keith worked as assistant athletic director with Mr. Miller from the 2009-2010 school year through the 2012-2013 school year. Ms. Keith became athletic director on October 7, 2013; on February 17, 2014, she elected to receive her supplemental compensation from the New Schedule. On February 26, 2014, the Board paid her an additional $1,536.28 to transition to the New Schedule. The Board paid Ms. Keith $8,000 annually to coach girls' varsity basketball under the New Schedule. But after Mr. Miller became assistant principal in 2013, he received $9,166.70 in supplemental compensation under annually under the Old Schedule to coach boys' varsity basketball until the 2016-2017 school year; the Board then required all coaches to transition to the New Schedule, and reduced Mr. Miller's supplemental compensation for the same position to $8,000. (Doc. 28-1 at 4-6).
Neither party has provided the court with a complete explanation of exactly how the Board determined Ms. Keith's and Mr. Miller's supplemental compensation under the Old Schedule or the Old Schedule's complicated relationship with teaching pay. Accordingly, neither party has calculated for the court how much either Ms. Keith or Mr. Miller received in supplemental pay for any individual coaching position before Ms. Keith elected to receive her compensation from the New Schedule and before Mr. Miller became assistant principal. So, the parties have not provided the court with the exact amount of Ms. Keith's and Mr. Miller's annual supplemental pay for any individual sport between the 2009-2010 and 2013-2014 school years. But the court has organized the supplemental pay of Mr. Miller and Ms. Keith into the chart below based on all the evidence submitted by the parties:
(See doc. 28-4 at 23, 24; doc. 28-1 at 5, 9, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 30-31, 33-34, 36).
When Ms. Keith served as athletic director at Talladega High School, she did not have an assistant athletic director working alongside her, unlike Mr. Miller, who had Ms. Keith as assistant athletic director. Ms. Keith held the...
To continue reading
Request your trial