Piscataway Board of Education v. Sharon Taxman

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Piscataway Board of Education v. Taxman, 91 F.3d 1547 (3d Cir. 1996) was a racial discrimination case begun in 1989. The school board of Piscataway Township, New Jersey needed to eliminate a teaching position from the high school Business Education department. Under New Jersey state law, tenured teachers have to be laid off in reverse order of seniority. The newest tenured teachers, Sharon Taxman and Debra Williams, white and African-American respectively, had started working at the school on the same day. In the interest of maintaining racial diversity (Williams was the only black teacher in the department, and 50% of the students were minorities), the school board voted to lay off Taxman, even though she had a master's degree and Williams only had a bachelor's degree. Taxman complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying that the board had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in favor of Taxman. The school board appealed to the United States Supreme Court and a hearing was scheduled for January 1998, but civil rights groups, fearing that the case could lead to the prohibition of affirmative action, provided money for the board to settle the case out of court, so the case was never heard.^[1]

Taxman was subsequently rehired. Both teachers are currently teaching in Piscataway. Williams remains at the high school, while Taxman has been reassigned to Conackamack Middle School.