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TRENTON
– The Division on Civil Rights filed
an amicus brief with the New Jersey Supreme
Court that supports the position of a 73-year-old
college dean who is suing Mercer County Community
College for not extending her contract after
25 years of employment. Oral argument is scheduled
for the case on Tuesday at 10 a.m.
Filed with the Supreme Court on October 28,
the Division’s brief contends Mercer
Community College is incorrect in its argument
that a 1985 amendment to the state Law Against
Discrimination (LAD) – an amendment
that allows employers to refuse to hire job
candidates over age 70 – means it did
not unlawfully discriminate in failing to
renew the contract of Rose Nini, longtime
Dean of the college’s Division of Corporate
and Community Programs.
The
Division’s brief contends that the non-renewal
of Nini’s contract in 2005 is not protected
by the so-called over-70 exception in the
LAD, as Mercer Community College contends,
but instead is tantamount to a firing by the
college, and that such an action is therefore
subject to the LAD’s discrimination
protections.
In
attempting to defend its action via the over-70
exception, the Division’s brief asserts,
Mercer Community College is relying on a “misplaced
and overly broad interpretation” of
the 1985 amendment. If such an interpretation
were to be adopted, it “would severely
hamper“ the state’s ability to
combat discrimination.
“It
is disingenuous for (Mercer Community College)
to characterize the termination of Nini’s
contract as simply a failure to employ in the
context of the amendment,” charges the
Division’s brief. “Clearly, to continuously
renew her contract for 25 years and decide not
to renew it only after she reached the age of
70 is not only invidious age discrimination,
but ‘mocks the beneficial goals of the
LAD.’ “ According
to the Division’s brief, Nini was a
member of the Mercer Community College Board
of Trustees before she began working at the
college as an executive assistant to the president
in 1979. In 1982, she became Dean of the Division
of Corporate and Community Programs, a position
she held until her final contract expired
on June 30, 2005.
Although
Nini was provided three ostensibly performance-related
reasons for the non-renewal of her contract,
her position is that the reasons were pretexts,
and that the actual reason was her age.
Her
civil complaint against the college, its board
of trustees and President Robert Rose, filed
in September 2005, charged age-based discrimination.
The trial court held, however, that state
law permitted an employer to decline to renew
the employment contract of any employee 70
years or age or older.
Nini
appealed, arguing that the non-renewal of
her employment contract represented an unlawful
termination or discharge. The Appellate Division
agreed and reversed the trial court.
The
college then petitioned the state Supreme
Court for certification on the issue of the
Appellate panel’s interpretation of
the over-70 exception, and certification was
granted.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Anne Marie
Kelly and Assistant Attorney General Andrea
M. Silkowitz are handling the Nini amicus
brief on behalf of the state.
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