Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Chicago
A female Chicago Public Schools teacher and basketball coach who an Illinois state appeals court said was wrongly fired for restraining a male student involved in a brawl in a high school gym during a girl's basketball game is also continuing a federal discrimination lawsuit against CPS, saying they treated her differently than a male CPS employee who was allowed to keep his job after he less successfully fought with the student during the same brawl.
In late June, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court overturned the Chicago Board of Education's decision to fire educator Kimberly Bulow from her teaching position at Infinity Math, Science & Technology High School on Chicago's West Side.
In that ruling, the justices said CPS' decision to fire Bulow amounted to a decision to punish the teacher for the behavior of an unruly and violent young man, who the court agreed posed a threat to Bulow's basketball players and others in the gym that day.
The case centered around Bulow's actions to intervene in a fight involving a male student, identified in court documents only as 17-year-old "J.B.," J.B.'s friends and a group of young male rivals.
According to court documents, Bulow had served as a CPS teacher from 2012-2022, including working as a tenured special education and English teacher at Infinity from 2014-2020. Bulow also served as a coach for the school's girls' soccer, track and basketball teams.
Bulow is also an amateur mixed martial arts fighter trained in jiu-jitsu and wrestling, according to the court documents.
However, Bulow was fired by CPS after officials determined she had acted improperly in restraining J.B. on Jan. 30, 2020, when a fight in which the young man and his associates were involved in the school's hallways spilled into the school gym where Bulow's girl's basketball team was playing.
According to court documents, security footage from the gym showed the school's athletic director, identified as Michael Zagorski, first attempted to intervene, grabbing J.B. from behind to restrain him. The two struggled and J.B. broke free.
At that point, nearly a minute into the incident, Bulow ran toward the fighters, "waving her arms and pointing at the fighters for about eight seconds," before she "grabs J.B. from behind" and uses various martial arts techniques to bring him to the ground and hold him there, even as the fight continued to rage in the gym.
Throughout the incident, the court documents said footage showed J.B. continued to struggle against Bulow in a bid to escape and reengage his opponents.
J.B. complained to the school about Bulow's restrain, accusing her of using too much force against him, restricting his breathing and injuring him.
Bulow was initially suspended without pay in February 2020.
However, in 2021, CPS moved to fire her, giving sweeping deference to J.B.'s testimony against the teacher, despite what the court said was the teen's clear bias and motivation to see Bulow fired.
After the Chicago Board of Education upheld the decision to terminate her, Bulow appealed to the First District court, where justices agreed CPS' decision was clearly wrong and not in keeping with the actual evidence.
The justices ordered Bulow reinstated to her former position, with back pay and all privileges she held before she was wrongly disciplined.
At the same time as Bulow was appealing her termination through the Board of Education and later in state court, she also was pressing a lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Education which she had filed in 2023 in Chicago federal court.
In that lawsuit, Bulow accused CPS of discriminating against her on the basis of sex, as she was punished for the fight, but other male CPS employees that day, including Zagorski, were not similarly punished for their actions to stop the brawl.
In the lawsuit, Bulow asked the court to order CPS to reinstate her to her former position, with back pay and an award of additional compensatory damages, including for emotional distress.
According to Bulow, CPS' treatment of her has left her "unemployable in Illinois," eventually taking a position at a school in rural Michigan near Kalamazoo, where she was also forced to work in food delivery "just so we could afford to live."
She said she was "treated like a criminal for trying to do the right thing," while living apart from friends and family.
While in Michigan, Bulow has since begun working as a real estate agent, as well, to supplement her income.
Initially, Bulow was represented by attorney Ardwin E. Boyer, of the firm of Newman Boyer & Statham, of Tinley Park.
However, according to the most recent federal court filings, Bulow is now representing herself.
According to federal court filings, the parties have agreed that the state appellate court ruling likely changes the dynamics of Bulow's federal case.
In a joint filing on July 21, they asked the judge to set a hearing to discuss next steps in the case, including how CPS is implementing the appellate court's order.
CPS said it does not intend to appeal the order in Bulow's favor.
Bulow said her dispute with CPS now centers on how much back pay CPS owes her, as they argue over how to determine "the precise amount that Ms. Bulow will receive under that Appellate Court judgment and under the statute," according to the July 21 filing.
According to Bulow, the disagreement centers on how much CPS owes Bulow when her income as a real estate agent is taken into account.
U.S. District Judge Charles P. Kocoras requested an updated joint status report by Aug. 29.
