A former alumni relations director at John Marshall Law School will be allowed, for now, to continue much of his discrimination lawsuit against the college, in which he alleges that he became the target of anti-male bias and was allegedly accused of being “anti-gay, anti-Muslim and anti-black,” after attending a lunch meeting with a donor at a Trump hotel.
On Oct. 30, U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman trimmed some of the allegations from the lawsuit brought against the Chicago-based law school by plaintiff John Bergholz, including a claim for age discrimination.
However, the judge said Bergholz could press on with his claims of sex discrimination under Titles VII and IX of the federal civil rights law. And the judge said he would allow Bergholz to continue his legal action against a JMLS coworker who allegedly persuaded four women to lodge allegedly false complaints against Bergholz at the college, allegedly to trigger a Title IX investigation there against Bergholz.
Bergholz had filed suit in January against JML in federal court, asserting the school had violated his civil rights. According to the complaint, Bergholz, a 20-year veteran of college fundraising, had worked for JMLS since June 2015, when he was hired to serve as the school’s executive director of development and alumni relations, a key fundraising post. He supervised eight employees, the lawsuit said.
In his lawsuit, Bergholz asserted he was successful in that role. Nonetheless, in 2016, the lawsuit said Bergholz began to face a rising stream of trouble at the school, beginning in the hours after he disclosed in a staff report that he had met with a “significant past donor to JMLS” at the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C.
According to the complaint, Anthony Niedwiecki, an associate dean at JMLS, emailed Bergholz, allegedly saying his decision to meet at the Trump hotel amounted to an endorsement of Trump for president, and allegedly accusing Bergholz of being “therefore anti-gay, anti-Muslim and anti-Black.”
Later, Bergholz said he was informed by the college’s director of diversity that four women had allegedly complained to the college concerning Bergholz’s “lack of sensitivity.” He asserted those women filed their complaints at the urging of Niedwiecki.
While no formal investigation was launched by the college, Bergholz said the possibility of such an investigation was cited when he was fired about a month later by dean Angela “Darby” Dickerson.
Bergholz asserted in his complaint Dickerson maintained “a pattern and practice … to eliminate the employment of men, and particularly older men,” after she became dean.
In response to the lawsuit, JMLS asked the judge to dismiss Bergholz’s claims.
However, the judge only agreed to do so in part.
On the question of age discrimination and retaliation, Judge Feinerman said Bergholz failed to first bring the matter to the attention of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. While he had checked a box on his EEOC complaint to assert allegations of sex discrimination, Bergholz had not checked the boxes needed to move forward with his age discrimination complaint, the judge said.
Thus, Feinerman ruled, Bergholz had not exhausted his “administrative remedies” on the age discrimination question. The judge dismissed the age discrimination claims without prejudice, meaning Bergholz could yet refile those, once he pursues the claim first through the EEOC.
The judge also dismissed his claims against Dickerson, saying Dickerson could not considered Bergholz’s employer under federal anti-discrimination law, and Bergholz never named her as a respondent on his EEOC paperwork.
However, the judge said Bergholz could be allowed to continue his case against both JMLS for sex discrimination and against Niedwiecki for allegedly “conspiring” with the four female employees to file allegedly false complaints to get Bergholz fired.
Bergholz is represented in the action by attorneys Wesley E. Johnson, of the firm of Goodman Tovrov Hardy & Johnson LLC, and Thomas D. Rosenwein, of the Rosenwein Law Group, both of Chicago.
JMLS and other defendants are represented by attorneys John M. Dickman, Goli Rahimi and Colleen G. DeRosa, of the firm of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart P.C., of Chicago.