The 61-year-old job applicant suing the MSU College of Law for age discrimination plans on filing a complaint against another school — the University of Missouri School of Law — his attorney said.
Nicholas Spaeth, who served as North Dakota’s state attorney general and as a clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice, applied for law school teaching positions at more than 100 colleges and universities.
He still is unemployed.
Spaeth filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court against the MSU College of Law July 28 citing age discrimination.
“If you look at his qualifications and compare them to the people who were hired, (there’s) simply no comparison,” his attorney Lynne Bernabei said in a previous interview. “Nothing except age difference could have (been a factor).”
More than 800 other hopefuls applied for a handful of positions at MSU, College of Law Dean Joan Howarth said in a statement.
About 30 were granted interviews, and Spaeth was not one of them.
“Upon reviewing the one-page form that Mr. Spaeth submitted to the registry, I see that the areas of teaching interest he listed did not match our hiring needs,” Howarth said in a previous statement. “Therefore, he was one of more than 800 attorneys in the registry — most of whom have excellent credentials — who were not invited to interview.”
The college has not been notified officially of the lawsuit yet, but it denies the allegations, she said in the statement.
The applicants who were hired ranged in age from their 30s to their 60s, Howarth said in a previous statement.
Positions were available for a tax scholar, a civil rights clinic director and other positions for applicants “with excellent academic and scholarly credentials,” Howarth said in an email.
Spaeth specializes in tax and business law, Bernabei said.
Spaeth argued Quill Corp. v. North Dakota — a case on online sales taxing that was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now, Spaeth is reviewing other colleges that denied him work to add to the lawsuit, Bernabei said.
Spaeth has not filed a complaint against the University of Missouri School of Law yet, but plans to in the near future, she said.
University of Missouri School of Law Dean R. Lawrence Dessem declined comment as of Monday evening.
Some of the colleges hired other experienced and well-qualified professionals instead of Spaeth, but the majority did not, Bernabei said.
Since the suit was filed, Bernabei said other older applicants from across the country have contacted her with similar complaints.
Still, the allegations against MSU are unfounded, Howarth said in a previous statement.
“Mr. Spaeth’s apparent decision to sue MSU Law is mystifying,” she said.
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A trial date has not been set yet.
