Would-be law prof, a former state AG, loses age bias suit against Georgetown
A federal judge has dismissed an age bias suit filed against Georgetown University Law Center by former North Dakota Attorney General Nicholas Spaeth.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle dismissed the case last week, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. Spaeth had sued six schools after he failed to get interviews through a law faculty recruitment conference. His suit against the University of Missouri law school is still pending; he voluntarily dismissed four others.
Huvelle said academic scholarship was a primary concern for Georgetown, yet Spaeth didn’t list relevant articles in his application, the BLT says. Nor did he indicate an interest in teaching tax law, though he later argued that his tax background made him a good candidate for Georgetown.
Spaeth’s lawyer had contended that words such as “young” or “pick of the litter” in describing law professor applicants indicated age bias, but Huvelle disagreed. “The bulk of the ‘ageist’ remarks that Spaeth points to are merely descriptions of young people as young,” she wrote in the opinion (PDF posted by the BLT).
Spaeth, a 1977 Stanford law grad, formerly clerked for Justice Byron White and taught law at the University of Missouri and the University of Minnesota.
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Former ND Attorney General Alleges 100-Plus Law Schools Discriminated Against Him”
