Two Older Employees Sued After Being Called “Dead Wood”

Julianne Taaffe, 62, and Kathryn Moon, 67, in the English as a second language department at Ohio State since 1983, working with students from over 40 countries, essentially forming the the program “from the ground up.” But in 2009, the new program director began to promote younger, less experienced staff members over the veteran employees.

“I couldn’t bring myself to believe Ohio State would do anything like that,” Ms. Moon said. A 2010 email from the director confirmed their fears, accidentally copied to one of the school’s staff, stating that he was dealing with “an extraordinarily change-averse population of people, almost all of whom are over 50, contemplating retirement (or not) and it’s like herding hippos.”

The women retired in 2014, earlier than they had wished due to the uncomfortable environment and health issues derived from the stress of the situation. In November, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found “reasonable cause to believe” that the women and their older colleagues had been discriminated against, a violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which protects workers 40 and older. Last week Ohio State settled with the two ladies, hiring them back and paying them back wages. However, no action was taken against any employee – but the school has agreed to train human resources staff to recognize, investigate and prevent age discrimination.

See Paula Span, He Called Older Employees ‘Dead Wood.’ Two Sued for Age Discrimination, New York Times, July 6, 2018.

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.