After Muldrow, even a fully paid suspension can become the employer's legal problem
Parking an employee on paid leave while you investigate just got riskier, a federal appeals court has signaled.
On June 15, 2026, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit revived two claims brought by Jaleelah Hassan Ahmed, superintendent of Hamtramck Public Schools in Michigan. A lower court had dismissed her case. The appeals court ruled she should be allowed to move forward on a retaliation claim under the Family and Medical Leave Act and a sex discrimination claim under Title IX.
The story, as the court framed it at this early stage, starts with leave. On her physician's advice, Ahmed took FMLA medical leave - protected time off for health reasons - from October 2021 to January 2022. As she prepared to come back, the board president emailed to "inform her she was prohibited from returning to work" and that she was on paid leave "pending investigation into alleged misconduct." She stayed on paid leave for more than a year.
Ahmed alleged the district never told her what it was looking into, never gave her a chance to respond, and never actually ran an investigation. She also alleged the district announced the investigation publicly. According to her complaint, she had filed discrimination charges with the EEOC and the Department of Labor.
The district court dismissed the claims, relying on the familiar idea that paid leave during a "timely" investigation is not a "materially adverse" action. The Sixth Circuit saw it differently, and the reasoning is what HR leaders should note.
For retaliation, the court applied the Burlington Northern standard, which asks whether an action "might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from" exercising their rights. The court called that a "relatively low bar." More than a year on paid leave, pending an investigation into alleged misconduct, gets over it.
For discrimination, the court turned to the Supreme Court's 2024 ruling in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis. Muldrow scrapped the requirement that workers show a "materially" adverse action and replaced it with "some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment." Ahmed met it, the court said: she could not do her job for over a year, lost visibility, and faced reputational harm from the public investigation announcement.
Comparisons mattered for the discrimination claim. Ahmed pointed to two men in similar roles. Her predecessor transferred teachers involuntarily without repercussions, she alleged. Her male interim replacement was investigated over what the court described as "serious allegations" of violating state and federal education laws, along with sex discrimination and retaliation - but was not placed on paid leave during that review. Neither man was a defendant in the case. Treating Ahmed differently from similarly situated men, the court said, made her sex discrimination claim plausible.
The court also noted timing. The district knew about Ahmed's leave, but it could not act against her while she was already out. The first chance came the moment she tried to return - and that "first meaningful opportunity," the court said, was enough at this stage to suggest a retaliatory motive.
For HR, the takeaways are practical. A long paid suspension is no longer a reliable shield, at least in this circuit. If you open an investigation, actually run it, document it, and tell the employee what it concerns. Apply discipline evenly - punishing one person for conduct you overlooked in another invites a comparator argument. And weigh the risk before announcing an investigation publicly, because the reputational damage can become part of the legal harm.
The ruling does not decide whether Ahmed wins. The appeals court accepted her account as true only for this early stage, reversed the dismissal, and sent the case back to the district court. Nothing has been proven on the merits.
