Age Discrimination In The Workplace
Myosha G. Guy
Saint Leo University

What started out as the dream solution for a financial crisis in the now Shelby County School District in Memphis, TN, turned out to be a nightmare for the more seasoned or older teachers. When Bill and Malinda Gates donated money geared towards improving teaching and learning in Memphis, TN, the superintendent used it as a platform to force retirement or terminate teachers who were in the retirement age range. The idea was to get rid those teachers that made the most money so newer teachers could be hired at two for the salary of one.

Memphis adopted a new system for evaluating teachers and the board policy stated that for the first year, it would be used as a tool for teacher improvement and no teacher would be terminated the first year of the implementation on the new process. Needless to say, several principals used this as a tool to remove certain individuals from their faculty in spite of not creating improvement plans and offering assistance to those who needed help.

As a 35-year teacher, my mother was appalled when she received notification that her principal had recommended she not be reelected for hire for the up coming year. His reasons were due to the fact that she had received a low evaluation. According to board policy, there was to be a total of three evaluations by a certified evaluator. She had only received two by her principal, who was certified, and 1 by an assistant principal who was not certified. There were also strict guidelines as to when these evaluations were to be administered, and deadlines that had to be met.

When my mother submitted documentation to The Board of Educations Human Resources department showing that the guidelines were not followed, she was told in essence that as long as she had been teaching, she should be an expert in all that was required of a teacher. My mother in turn, found herself going through a tenure hearing that seemed to focus on the fact that she was a senior teacher. Ironically, the only other teachers who had received a recommendation for non-reelection during this cycle were also teachers with 20 or more years’ experience, and ranged in ages from 50-65.

During the process, my mother discovered that not only were the members of the Human resources team not knowledgeable of board policies, but remained focused on the fact that after 35 years a teacher should be near perfect. The members also chose to overlook the fact that this was a new process, that was actually in a trial run, and was not to be used to punish teachers, but help improve their techniques for reaching the children of Shelby County Schools. The human resources department was remiss in the fact that they essentially moved based on the recommendation of the principal and did not thoroughly investigate policy and procedures set by the board.

After going through the process of a tenure hearing, it was determined that after 35 years of teaching, my mother would be terminated. Through her own investigation she found that numerous principals across the city of Memphis, had used the evaluations as a means of termination. She also discovered that several had surplussed positions that ‘senior’ teachers had held, yet placed much younger and newly hired or teachers with 1-5 years experience in those positions.

The Department of Human Resources failed to properly follow policies established by the Board of Education, and moved to terminate teachers without just cause. Because of these actions and due to the lack of knowledge by those charged with making sure everyone is treated fairly, the Dept. of EEOC has determined that it has enough evidence to investigate the actions of the Shelby County School District.

What my mother went through was clearly a form of age discrimination and was punishable under law. Age discrimination in the workplace has received an increasing amount of attention within the previous years and has become an everyday issue within organizations. It is against the law to force people to retire if they don’t feel they are ready to or don't want to retire. Employees have the right to continue working beyond any required retirement age that applied in the past. Compulsory retirement is when an employer forces an employee to retire because they have reached a certain age. Compulsory retirement also happens when an employer threatens or intimidates an employee to retire. I feel as long as an employee is able to perform their duties to the expected job performance level with proficiency and competency; they should be afforded the right to work until they feel they are no longer able to fulfill job expectations.