My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Florida

My wife, 24 just graduated in december with a bachelors degree in management, works for a bank and was recently denied a promotion. The promotion was given to a male in his late 20's early 30's with 2 kids, we will call him M. My wife has been with the company for 6 years as a "part-time" teller. I say part-time in quotes because over the last 5 years, she has worked mostly full-time hours, without the job title or benefits. All of which has been mandatory. Also during the last 3 years, the branch she has been at has gone through 3 assistant managers (CSM), with gaps between. My wife filled in and acted as the CSM during the gaps, and also did a large portion of the job for the last two CSMs due to the employees being mostly useless (hence why they have gone through 3 CSMs in 3 years). The position recently became available again, so my wife applied, which at the time of the job posting and application she was made to believe it was 'mostly' a technicality by the Branch manager (FCM) due to her history with the bank. Well the interview rolls around, the regional manager (RM) was the manager conducting the interview. The questions asked were very vague, and did not pertain to the job in any way, and only 5 or 6 questions in total. After the interview, curious how it went, my wife was asking the FCM if the RM had said anything. The FCM stated that the RM had said my wife was "very young but presents herself well" and "she didnt have much life experience". Well after a month of hearing nothing, they give the job to M. They tell my wife their reason for selecting M is he would be better for "driving sales" well my wife did some research and found in the 1 year, M has been with the bank. He has only MET his sales goal one month. My wife has MET her goal every month, and has exceeded or far exceeded every month. So she tells them, that is not an acceptable reason and she feels they may have chosen him due to him being a male, having 2 children with one of them being a newborn baby. So they come back and say well then its because he has previous management experience, and that her degree means nothing.

Ok, now that was long, but now M's relationship with the bank needs to be explained.

M was hired ~1 year ago (and was actually trained at my wife's branch BY my wife). M was referred by another employee, who also happens to be his best friends with R who was hired as a personal banker ~18 months ago. R has since been promoted to the FCM of another branch. Now, M works at yet a third branch where his direct manager, who we will call X who is a CSM, is also best friends with M and R. The RM that made the decision, is a "floating" manager that travels between branches. However her physical office, or "home office" is located at R's branch. So obviously R would have had an impact on her decision. Also, if she went to M's direct manager X for information on M, the information would most obviously heavily biased. I see this whole situation as being a very very large conflict of interest. As far as R and M and X being friends outside of work, R referred both M and X and received a referral bonus for both of them, so the relationship is documented.

This is a very confusing situation. If you have any further questions please let me know. Is there anything that can be done? Thanks.