Opinion ID: 4540613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: McDaniels

Text: Because the district court reversed its decision based on this Court’s decision in McDaniels v. Plymouth-Canton Cmty. Sch., 755 F. App’x 461 (6th Cir. 2018), it warrants some initial discussion. In McDaniels, the defendant, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools (PCCS) organized its maintenance employees into a three-tier system with custodians, assistant head maintenance custodians, and plant engineers. Id. at 463. PCCS had one or two female plant engineers, but the current maintenance director had never actually hired a female plant engineer. Id. at 465. The plaintiff alleged sex discrimination because she was passed over three times when she applied to be a plant engineer, each time in favor of a man. Id. at 463. By agreement between the union and PCCS, maintenance employees could take a series of courses that would help during promotion decisions. Id. at 463-64. The plaintiff had taken every single one of those courses except one. Id. at 464. For one of the positions, PCCS hired someone who had only worked for them for one year, id. at 466, whereas the plaintiff had worked for PCCS for approximately 16 years, id. at 464. After the plaintiff established her prima facie case, PCCS offered two legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for choosing men for the plant engineer positions: (1) the men had “demonstrated hands-on experience to a greater degree than” the plaintiff and (2) “some of the hiring decisions were motivated by the stronger familiarity and personal relationships that members of the hiring committees had with the successful candidates.” Id. at 469. The Court noted that “an employer may give greater weight to some qualifications than others and may look to qualifications that are not expressly articulated in the job description.” Id. at 470. The Court ultimately concluded that the plaintiff had failed “to show that a reasonable jury -12- No. 19-1467, Gibson v. MGM Grand Detroit, LLC could find that [the d]efendant’s articulated non-discriminatory motive was pretext for gender discrimination.” Id at 472.