(a) Notwithstanding any provision in section 12-36 it shall be not unlawful for an employer, employment agency or labor organization:

    (1)    To take any action otherwise prohibited under section 12-36 where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age.

    (2)    To observe the terms of a bona fide seniority system or any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of section 12-36, except that no such employee benefit plan shall excuse the failure to fire any individual, and no such seniority system or employee benefit plan shall require or permit the involuntary retirement of any individual because of the age of such individual.

    (3)    To discharge or otherwise discipline an individual for good cause.

    (b) Nothing in section 12-36 shall be construed to prohibit compulsory retirement of any employee:

    (1)    Who has attained sixty-five (65) years of age but not seventy (70) years of age, and who, for the two-year period immediately before retirement, is employed in a bona fide executive or a high policymaking position, if such employee is entitled to an immediate nonforfeitable annual retirement benefit from a pension, profit sharing, savings, or deferred compensation plan, or any combination of such plans, of the employer of such employee, which equals, in the aggregate, at least twenty-seven thousand dollars ($27,000.00). In applying the retirement benefit test above, if any such retirement benefit is in the form other than a straight life annuity (with no ancillary benefits), or if employees contribute to any such plan or make rollover contributions, such benefit shall be adjusted in accordance with regulations prescribed by the secretary, after consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, so that the benefit is the equivalent of a straight life annuity (with no ancillary benefits) under a plan to which employees do not contribute and under which no rollover contributions are made.

    (2)    Who has attained sixty-five (65) years of age but not seventy (70) years of age, and who is serving under a contract of unlimited tenure (or similar arrangement providing for unlimited tenure) at an institution of higher education (as defined by section 1201(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965).

(Code 1964, § 7.2037)