A federal judge or Supreme Court justice never has to retire, but a qualified lawyer over the age of 40 can be discriminated against on the basis of age when applying for a teaching job at a law school.

The article is too brief and includes too few facts to make a judgment as to the wisdom of the employment decisions, but universities seem to manage to excuse themselves from laws barring age discrimination.

No record of hiring someone over 40 is pretty awful in my opinion.

While I am at it: Teachers at all levels from kindergarten to graduate school --- save all of your records -- all your papers -- all your reviews -- all the notices from your bosses -- everything even student reviews of your teaching, even schedules of classes. Save it all. In this anti-teacher era, you never know when you will need them for a court case.

At the university level - age or a medical condition will get you non-renewed. I have several professor friends who claim the older they get the more often assignments require driving, they get classrooms up the stairs or in distant buildings, and they never get merit raises.

My wife's school district won a class action legal challenge over age, hiring, and salaries. A smart lawyer collected data anonymously for several years and filed a suit without naming the teachers involved. About 40 teachers were represented. When presented with the evidence, the school board quietly raised the pay of all teachers in the "experienced" range! Even with a union contract and public pay scale, the administrators were underpaying teachers by coming up with reasons to discount experience and graduate degrees one teacher at time. They were targeting the older, higher-paid teachers with an organized plan.

Recently, groups of older teachers here claimed that they get assignments on the upper floors, get more difficult behavior problems, and are transferred more often. There's a definite attempt to get older teachers to quit.

It's clear that many educational administrators get behind the closed doors and work to get rid of older professors and teachers. Our unions are actively collecting data on this, and there are clear patterns even though it's almost impossible to prove anything. This occurs here in so many locations, that it seems almost a state-wide mandate. This is very different than a few decades ago when the older folks were often leaders or respected as mentors.