Dennis McConkey, a 63-year-old gay man, worked as an art teacher at The Churchill School and Center, a New York private K-12 school serving students with language-based learning disabilities, from 1992 until his termination in October 2022. Over the course of his three decades at the School, McConkey became deeply involved in student life, serving as a mentor, advisor, and leader of the School’s LGBTQ+ affinity group.
At the same time, the record reflected longstanding concerns from school leadership regarding McConkey’s temperament and interactions with students and colleagues. Beginning as early as 2017, administrators documented incidents involving angry outbursts, confrontational behavior, and inappropriate comments to students. In December 2017, the School suspended McConkey for five days following several incidents, including confrontations with students and staff, and required him to complete an anger management program. The suspension letter warned that future incidents involving anger or intimidation could result in termination.
Although later performance reviews praised McConkey’s teaching abilities and support for LGBTQ+ students, they also repeatedly referenced continuing concerns regarding professionalism and anger management. In 2021, his supervisor issued another written warning regarding negative interactions with colleagues and students and advised that continued issues could result in immediate termination.
McConkey also had a tenuous relationship with his supervisor, Upper School Principal Jason Wallin. McConkey alleged that after a 2001 incident in which someone wrote a homophobic slur referencing him on a classroom whiteboard, Wallin repeatedly referenced the incident during annual evaluations and described feeling intimidated by McConkey’s reaction at the time. McConkey believed these repeated references amounted to harassment tied to his sexual orientation. He also alleged that Wallin made various insensitive comments and microaggressions over the years and that the School fostered a “good old boys club” culture.
In June 2022, McConkey emailed the School’s Assistant Head of School complaining that Wallin’s repeated references to the whiteboard incident constituted harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation, age, and body type.
In October 2022, the incident leading directly to McConkey’s termination occurred. After noticing that students were missing from his classroom, McConkey went looking for them and opened the girls’ bathroom door either using his foot or leg. Students later reported that the door opened forcefully, striking one student and causing her to stumble backward. Other students reported that McConkey yelled at them afterward and failed to apologize. The School immediately suspended McConkey and conducted an investigation that included interviews with students and staff, review of surveillance footage, and a meeting with McConkey himself.
Following the investigation, the School terminated his employment, citing the bathroom incident together with his history of prior warnings regarding anger and professionalism. The termination letter stated that the School could no longer tolerate his “failure to control [his] temper and maintain appropriate decorum with both students and staff.”
McConkey filed suit alleging discrimination and retaliation under Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and state law. He alleged discrimination based on sexual orientation and age, as well as retaliation for complaining about harassment and discrimination.
The Court rejected McConkey’s discrimination claims. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of protected characteristics, including sexual orientation. The Court concluded that the School had articulated legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for termination and that McConkey failed to raise a genuine issue of fact that those reasons were pretextual.
McConkey argued that the School’s investigation suggested that the reasons for his termination were pretextual, but the Court found that the School’s investigation into the bathroom incident was not so flawed or irregular as to support an inference of discriminatory motive. Multiple students and staff corroborated key aspects of the incident, and the administrators reviewed video footage and interviewed McConkey before reaching their decision. The Court emphasized that it was not tasked with determining whether the School reached the “correct” conclusion, but whether the School honestly believed the conduct violated workplace expectations.
McConkey also pointed to a series of allegedly discriminatory incidents over the years for his discrimination claim, including Wallin’s repeated references to the 2001 whiteboard incident, comments suggesting McConkey would “like” newly hired teachers who were gay, and statements that McConkey’s physical presence was “intimidating.” The Court concluded that this conduct was too remote, vague, or attenuated from the termination decision to support an inference of bias. While some comments may have been insensitive or unprofessional, the Court found insufficient evidence that sexual orientation discrimination played a role in the termination decision.
The Court similarly dismissed McConkey’s retaliation claims. Although the Court acknowledged that McConkey’s June 2022 complaint about harassment constituted protected activity, it found insufficient evidence that the complaint caused his termination. The Court emphasized that concerns about McConkey’s conduct predated his complaint by many years and that temporal proximity alone was insufficient to establish retaliation in light of the School’s documented concerns and investigation findings.
Finally, the Court denied McConkey’s request for sanctions relating to surveillance footage that had not been preserved in its original format. The School did not take effort to preserve the surveillance footage but instructed a staff member to preserve the clips of the footage that she filmed on her cell phone. The Court found that the School should have preserved more of the footage once litigation became reasonably foreseeable, but it concluded that McConkey failed to establish prejudice or intentional destruction of evidence.
McConkey v. Churchill Sch. & Ctr. (S.D.N.Y. May 13, 2026) 2026 WL 1328605.
Note: This case illustrates the importance of consistent documentation and follow-through when addressing employee conduct concerns over time. It also highlights the need to take complaints regarding harassment or discrimination seriously, even where the employee raising the complaint has an extensive disciplinary history.