CHICAGO –A federal judge is allowing a Spanish instructor to continue her age discrimination lawsuit against Loyola University for refusing to allow her to interview for a tenure track position, allegedly because she was more than 50 years old.
In his 19-page memorandum opinion and order issued May 17, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. denied Loyola's motion for summary judgment regarding the discrimination claim in the lawsuit filed by Olivia Maciel Edelman, a Spanish and Latin American literature professor at Loyola, who alleged she was not selected to interview for a tenure track professor position because of her age and was retaliated against after she complained about the selection process.
However, Tharp did grant Loyola's motion for summary judgment regarding the retaliation claim in Edleman's suit.
"Edelman has presented multiple pieces of evidence which, taken together, would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that Loyola discriminated against her because of her age," Tharp said in his opinion. "Edelman has not, however, established that she engaged in statutorily protected activity, so the court grants Loyola’s motion for summary judgment with respect to her retaliation claim."
Edelman was 53 in 2010 when Loyola hired her for a one-year lecturer position and later that same year rehired her for a three-year renewable, non-tenure track position in the university's Modern Languages and Literatures Department, court filings said.
In the fall of 2012, Edelman applied for, but didn't get, a tenure track assistant professor of Spanish position at Loyola and claimed she was more qualified than the four candidates brought to campus for interviews.
"In January 2013, Edelman learned that she had not been selected for even the first round of interviews," court documents said.
The department chair emailed David Posner, a member of the search committee, about "why Edelman had not been selected to interview," court documents said. Edelman had more experience in teaching than the finalists in addition to an "established publishing record" and "excellent" teaching evaluations.
Posner "did not take kindly to Edelman’s aspersions about the search process" and replied to the email saying "the search committee was not interested merely in quantity of publications or length of experience. If this were the case, then we would simply hire the oldest person and be done with it," court documents said.
The following April, Edelman was informed that her contract would not be renewed because of "changing curricula." She filed her lawsuit against the university the following October.
Edelman is represented in the action by attorney Wayne B. Giampietro, of the firm of Poltrock & Giampietro, of Chicago.
Loyola is represented by attorneys Kirsten Ann Milton and Matthew M. Brown, of the firm of Jackson Lewis P.C., of Chicago.