A 56-year-old female accountant for a large healthcare company applied for promotion to a posted assistant controller position. The accountant had earned a Masters in Accountancy, but had never become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). The other candidate for the position, a 48-year-old male, had passed the required exams to become an active CPA, and had practiced as a CPA, but had allowed his certification to become inactive at the time of his application for the position. The qualifications for the position listed in the posting indicated that candidates must be a CPA. Both candidates were interviewed by a panel of company executives. The 48-year-old male was selected for the position in May 2016 since he had once been an active CPA. The accountant filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in October 2016. During the course of cooperating with the EEOC’s resulting investigation, the company discovered the accountant had secretly maintained her own highly-organized electronic copy of approximately 100,000 pages of the company’s confidential financial records on her home computer. The company has no specific policy prohibiting the possession of such information, and the accountant had never been told not to keep her own copies of this type of confidential information. Nevertheless, the company terminated the accountant in December 2016. The stated reason was her unauthorized possession of the company’s confidential financial information. 1. What legal issues existed at the time the charge was filed with the EEOC? Would the accountant be able to establish a prima facie case of federal age and/or gender discrimination? EXPLAIN. 2. If the accountant filed an amended charge with the EEOC alleging retaliation, would she be able to establish a prima facie case based upon her termination? If so, would she be able to establish pretext if the company could meet its burden of articulating a legitimate non-retaliatory reason for her termination? EXPLAIN.