Fired female athletics director sues Rock Hill school district claiming sex bias
A fired high school female athletic director’s sex discrimination lawsuit against the Rock Hill School District could go to trial in May, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Lauren West, who was in charge of Northwestern High School athletics until she was fired last year, said in a federal civil rights lawsuit file that she received unequal and biased treatment compared to male athletic directors at South Pointe High and Rock Hill High and male administrators at Northwestern High.
West claims she was suspended, then terminated, because she complained about the unequal and biased treatment.
“She suffered differing terms and conditions of employment between how she was treated, and how the male athletic directors were treated. She was placed on administrative leave, and then wrongfully terminated,” West’s lawyer, Shannon Polvi, said in a statement to The Herald Wednesday.
The lawsuit asks for an award for damages from the school district, including loss of salary, loss of benefits, reduced retirement and for the “damages for reputational harm and emotional distress.”
Rock Hill School District denies West’s allegations of sex and gender bias, court documents show.
West was fired after an employee performance review, the school district said in court documents, and after she violated the district policy.
The judge ordered mediation by February. A trial date will be set in May if the case cannot be resolved, documents show.
‘A profession dominated by males’
West was athletic director at Northwestern High from 2011 until she was fired in September 2019, documents show.
The lawsuit claims there were several instances of “disparate treatment,” including claims she was paid less than male peers for years. She also was “left out of the hiring process” during the recruitment of a head football coach in summer 2019, a key part of the job of an athletic director, according to the lawsuit. The school district denies that this happened, court documents show.
West also faced questions such as “What does a female know about football?” from a Northwestern administrator, Polvi said.
West was not given the same professional respect “in a profession dominated by males,” according to the lawsuit.
District denies bias
The district said in a July court filing that West was fired in September 2019 because of a performance review that said she “needs improvement.”
And an audit of the Northwestern athletic department showed West had authorized school funds to be paid to her husband and daughter, which violates district policy, according to court document.
West, in the lawsuit, denies any wrongdoing, saying this is “further proof of discriminatory treatment” because the female spouses of the South Pointe and Rock Hill High athletic directors are “well-known for consistently working the athletic gates” and have not been disciplined for it.
The lawsuit claims the internal audit “targeted” West, showing disparate treatment based on her gender and sex.
Mychal Frost, spokesman for the Rock Hill School District, said he’s aware of the lawsuit but couldn’t comment Wednesday.
Efforts to reach school district lawyers for immediate comment were unsuccessful.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 12:11 PM with the headline "Fired female athletics director sues Rock Hill school district claiming sex bias."
