A federal judge from the District of Minnesota has dismissed major portions of a discrimination lawsuit brought by three former coaches of the women’s sports program at the University of Minnesota Duluth, finding that the claims were either too weak or should have been brought in Minnesota state court.
The only exception was the claim of Shannon Miller, the long-time women’s hockey coach. That lawsuit was allowed to continue because her claims were also centered on allegations including gender discrimination and Title IX retaliation, subject to federal law, and because she had presented enough evidence to move forward.
The claims of former softball coach and women’s hockey director of operations Jen Banford and former women’s basketball coach Annette Wiles were, however, dismissed. In so ruling, the court noted that their claims were weaker than those brought by Miller.
“Banford has a long list of complaints — some bordering on petty — about the way that she was treated by UMD, including (to cite just a few examples) fights over budgets, fights over equipment, fights over field usage, fights over the location of her office, and fights over how to address certain issues involving certain student athletes,” Schiltz wrote.
“None of the matters about which Banford complains have an apparent connection to the fact that she is female; to the contrary, they seem to be the types of disputes that are ubiquitous in college athletics departments.”
Meanwhile, Wiles’s claim was more about sexual orientation discrimination, specifically that athletic director Josh Berlo became hostile toward her after she spoke at a National Coming Out Day luncheon. Unfortunately for Wiles, the 8th Circuit has yet to hold that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Pursuing her claim in state court, where the Minnesota Human Rights Act does provide such protections, would have been a better option.
“To be clear: Plaintiffs could have pursued their state-law claims — including their MHRA sexual-orientation claims — in state court,” Schiltz wrote. “But, for reasons that are not apparent, plaintiffs chose to bring those claims in federal court, despite the fact that plaintiffs knew (or should have known) that a federal court would have no jurisdiction over them.”
The defendants were pleased to get some relief.
“We are pleased that a substantial portion of the plaintiffs’ claims have been dismissed,” Tim Pramas, senior associate general counsel for the university, said in a statement. “The lawsuit began with three plaintiffs each asserting eight counts against the University. As a result of the judge’s summary judgment decision in our favor, we now face only one plaintiff and two counts.”
That one plaintiff, Miller, could have a strong claim based on the court’s conclusion that a reasonable jury could conclude, among other things, that the men’s hockey coach had his contract renewed despite comparable, or worse, performance, UMD applied different criteria in deciding to renew his contract, and the school did not ask Miller to take a pay cut in lieu of termination or pursue funds from donors who expressed interest in supplementing her salary.
Pramas remains confident.
“As for the two remaining counts, the judge decided that a jury, in its function as finder of fact, needs to resolve the disputed facts,” he said. “The University believes the evidence clearly shows there was no discrimination and we will aggressively defend ourselves at trial.”
