Takeaway: Employers should avoid having a supervisor accused of harassment participate in a decision-making panel. Otherwise, a court could find that the panel's decision was the result of the supervisor's discriminatory animus.

A Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) employee could challenge a decision to remove him from a training class instructor position based on the alleged bias of a panel member participating in the review of whether it would be a conflict of interest for the employee to teach a class with his son enrolled in it. The removal resulted in a significant reduction in the employee's earnings.

Since 1985, the plaintiff worked at the TVA, a federally owned corporation that provides utilities to the Tennessee Valley region. The TVA operates two nuclear power plants in Tennessee: the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant and the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. For most of the plaintiff's career at the TVA, he worked as an assistant unit operator (AUO) at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant.

The TVA runs two types of training programs at its nuclear plants: one for AUOs who are not licensed and one for licensed training operators. The AUO training program has two types of courses: an initial Nuclear Student Generation Plant Operating (NSGPO) training course and Nonlicensed Operator Requalification (NLOR) courses to keep requirements up-to-date. Each plant has a local joint training subcommittee that oversees the programs.

In May 2015, the Sequoyah plant's committee appointed the plaintiff to be...

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