Allegations of Sex and Age Discrimination in Wisconsin Defeated by Consistent Performance Concerns

By: Ryan Danahey

In Hagen v. Fon du Lac School District, No, 24-1688 (7^th Cir. 2025), the court considered an allegation by a 54-year-old woman that she was reassigned, due to her sex and/or age, to a job as a principal for an elementary school, after previously being a principal at a high school. Plaintiff alleged violations of Title VII and the ADEA.

In Plaintiff’s performance reviews received from the superintendent as a high school principal, there were consistent concerns about “culture” and “climate” as it related to the operations of the high school. Plaintiff was told she would be “better fit” at the elementary school where she would be principal. Plaintiff was replaced by a 39-year-old male at the high school.

Under Title VII, the court must determine whether Plaintiff’s sex was a “motivating factor,” while under the ADEA, a Plaintiff must establish that she would not have been moved to another position “but for” her age.

The court considered allegations by Plaintiff including: (1) that the superintendent belonged to an exclusively male lunch group, whose members included a male who the superintendent did not fire despite knowing about that teacher’s affair with another teacher; and (2) that the superintendent gave a higher evaluation to a member of that male group than was recommended by other staff members. In response to this, the court noted that there were other reasons for this higher evaluation provided to the male teacher, and the failure to fire the other male teacher for an inter-school affair was not factually similar enough to create a presumption of discrimination in this case.

With respect to the age complaints, the court noted that the male teacher who replaced Plaintiff had 15 years of experience as a teacher in the district and had equivalent principal experience as Plaintiff had when she was initially hired as the high school principal. Therefore, the court did not believe that Plaintiff’s ADEA discrimination claim was sufficient.

Overall, the court found that Plaintiff was removed from her position as a high school principal because she consistently received poor evaluations as it related to culture and climate and was moved to an elementary school for those non-discriminatory reasons. Further, the court reasoned that the younger male who replaced Plaintiff consistently received better reviews related to the culture and climate factors when he was principal at the elementary school.