Penn State educator sues university over denied promotion, DEI requirements
A Penn State Extension educator who sued the university Thursday claimed she was twice denied a promotion because she failed to sufficiently advance what she described as the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion agenda.
Enology educator Molly Kelly said in the lawsuit that the smoking gun of viewpoint discrimination came when a promotion review committee questioned her diversity-related activities and said the “perception is that this ‘checked the box.’”
“Public universities are not allowed to condition employment decisions on the parroting of a preferred viewpoint,” attorney Reilly Stephens said in a written statement. “DEI requirements operate as tools of coercion, demanding that all scholarship serve ideological ends. The First Amendment requires more — that our government institutions leave open the marketplace of ideas to all citizens.”
A Penn State spokesperson declined comment Friday, citing the university’s policy to typically not comment on pending litigation. Penn State Extension, university President Neeli Bendapudi and the Extension director were listed as defendants.
Kelly’s attorneys said her first application for promotion was denied after a committee found she fell short of the requirements for that rank. The group said there was “no evidence of efforts to reach underserved audiences” and that “minimum diversity training hours were noted.”
The committee recommended she be more descriptive or “show efforts to apply learnings in the field” in her next application.
“The Committee’s critique reveals its true concern: not whether Dr. Kelly had participated in professional development, but whether she had demonstrated sufficient ideological ‘growth’ and could articulate the ideologically correct ‘learnings,’” her attorneys wrote. “This is thought-policing, not professional evaluation.”
Kelly applied for promotion a second time, but was again denied. The committee “questioned how doing site visits and providing technical expertise to LGBTQ and Greek Orthodox-owned businesses is receiving diversity training.”
Her attorneys said she brought the lawsuit to “vindicate her constitutional rights and to restore the freedom of thought that must prevail in America’s public universities.”
Kelly, of Lycoming County, has worked for the university since February 2018. When the university announced her hiring, it said her role was to enhance support for Pennsylvania’s growing wine industry.
She alleged the university violated the First and 14th Amendments and is seeking, among other things, that Penn State be prohibited from using what she described as diversity, equity and inclusion criteria as a condition for promotion.