Woman denied job because ‘men do better with men’ gets $335,000 settlement
A woman who filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Danville-based health system of denying her a promotion because of her gender and then firing her for complaining about it will be paid $335,000 under a settlement.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Friday that Ephraim McDowell Health and Ephraim McDowell Medical Center had settled the lawsuit the EEOC filed in March 2024 on behalf of the employee, Shannon Long.
Long worked at Ephraim McDowell Fort Logan Hospital in Stanford, where she was director of the obstetrics department from 2008 to 2021, according to the suit.
After she expressed interest in applying for the hospital administrator’s position, the CEO of Ephraim McDowell told Long he wouldn’t choose her “because of her sex, based on his belief that men do better with men and that it was best to have a man in the Administrator position,” according to the suit.
A man got the job, and Long was assigned to a lower-paying position reporting to him.
According to the lawsuit, one of the requirements for the position at the time was a master’s degree. The person who got the job did not have one; Long held two master’s degrees and a doctorate.
The lawsuit alleged that Ephraim McDowell “lowered the existing education requirements” so the male candidate could meet them.
After Long filed a complaint with the EEOC, she was fired in December 2022.
“Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex-based discrimination and retaliation against employees for filing discrimination charges with the EEOC,” the agency said.
In addition to paying Long $335,000, the settlement requires Ephraim McDowell to provide training on equal employment opportunity, make annual reports to the EEOC about its compliance and post information about employee rights.
For the next two years, when filling positions that report directly to Ephraim McDowell Health’s president and CEO, the organization agreed that if more than one person applies, it will have a committee conduct interviews, according to the consent decree filed in court. The committee will include at least one woman and will include the president and CEO, a member of the senior leadership team and a member of the board of directors.
Ephraim McDowell also agreed to pay the balance of Long’s student loans for her doctorate of nursing degree.
“We appreciate Ephraim McDowell for working with us to resolve this litigation and agreeing to implement changes to prevent future hiring violations,” Kenneth Bird, Indianapolis regional attorney for the EEOC, said in a news release. “These steps demonstrate a commitment to achieving a workplace free from discrimination and retaliation.”
The consent decree signed by U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell says that “each party denies the claims and defenses of the other, and nothing in this Decree is intended to be an admission of liability by the parties; rather, the parties have consented to entry of this Decree in order to avoid the significant expense, burdens and distractions that continued protracted litigation of this case would involve.”
