why don't you please proceed yes good morning your honor all of the three honorable judges made please the court of course i'm all over kopko i represent professor honigman gong a professor at hunter college who claims she was injured as a result of discrimination and there were two decisions of the lower court that i'm sure the court is aware of the st was on twelve b six a direct motion to dismiss without any consideration of other than the evidence presented in the complaint and the allegations of the complaint and i think it's worthwhile although i know you are as a well aware of the standards for discrimination but she cites a standards and then goes on to violate the own stand her own standard setting and i think it's worth reading quickly what she quotes she quotes from cases earlier cases facts required to be alleged in the complaint need not not give plausible support to the ultimate question of whether the adverse employment action was attributable to discrimination the facts need only give plausible support to a minimal inference of discriminatory motivation and the judge says why that so that's because employers usually don't state their intent to discriminate it's an unstated intent and state of mind and rarely is there direct smoking gun evidence of discrimination rather plaintiffs must rely on bits and pieces of information to support an inference of discrimination a mosaic of intentional discrimination even if the actions independently alleged do not constitute adverse employment actions they may provide relevant background experience evidence of distant of defendant's motivation and that's the case here now shockingly and really shockingly judge show feld show field misreads the complaint when she states on page eleven of her st opinion that the complaint does not t'ai the negative allegations of department chair alan fry to dr gong's race or national origin or allege that such actions were motivated by plaintiff's membership in a protected class that's simply false look at page four of the complaint page four of the complaint paragraph twenty three  nine and and i'm sorry wait a minute that's hold on a moment please that's the opinion that's page eleven of the opinion it's joint appendix seventy nine dollars and then if we go to the to the says that there is no allegation that dr fry acted out of discriminatory animist that's false that's simply false furthermore if you look further remember she says inciting there has to be a most a a mosaic showing discriminatory intent and what is them as a that's alleged specifically in the complaint she faced grave obstacles to promotions and it took her longer then the other faculty members to game date to yes but it's not only one thing we can we can go to other things in appropriate teaching assignment changes she cites specifically she was assigned to teach chinese ya graffiti even though she's an american geography specialist and she was assigned to that because she's chinese she was exposed to hostile commentary again that hostile commentary had to do with china and made her uncomfortable as as a as of chinese extract take give up their faith without a been discriminatory it might have given the fact that this was not a political you know a political discussion and that political discussions that were could be deemed to be embarrassing or uncomfortable to members of the faculty and that's what she recites and i would say that department you can't talk about current events because it might be embarrassing to someone who is of the same i suppose ethnic origin as a particular country under discussion is that is that i thought the thought was that in these discussions because this had apparently nothing to do with the direct subjects being taught that you stay away from subjects that could be embarrassing and she indicates that this was particularly embarrassing to her and was engaged in notwithstanding that seems to reflect subjective sensibilities sensitivities on the part of your client without necessarily meeting object of standards i mean what we've been discussing now are relatively innocuous  ns and and and occurrences on there you know that there needs to be some kind of evidence that is directly directly shows some sort of discriminatory mosaic other than her feelings her sensitivities about certain things that happen but remember them that grab a man of the complaint is that she was removed from two of two positions she was young who does faculty advisor and as as a scholarship coordinator why those two actions were engineered by dr of by doc professor fry the head of the department and we show in the early a actions that this professor fry had discriminatory animists against that that he would have acted against yeah acted against her interests because he was he was discriminated was he felt hostile to hurt to her chinese origin and who are being chinese and treated unfairly and we go back to those earlier examples you take each example individually your honor you're right if you just look at the one individual example perhaps it doesn't rise to the level of discrimination but if you look at the panoply of treatment that she received over over a decade at hunter college one can see that she was disadvantaged and there are like or you may hold that in reserve i'll give you the option i would just conclude by saying that on the nd dismissal it was a clear conflict as to when that cuny knew and when the department knew that she had filed a complaint with the seat and given that conflict of evidence it should not have been the summary judgment dismissal ok thank you reserve three minutes for rebuttal why don't we hear from nature and as the difficult properly hell even considering all of the allegations together the complaint fails to give rise to this plausible mosaic of intentional discrimination but we have three our miscellany of alleged event complaint barring a manic preemptively and that opinion and then entering judgement the same day here the district court dismissed some of the complaint two of the three claims and then held to status conference as over the course of two months about discovery leading up to summary judgment these perceived slights as judge walker's question alluded to but that's not enough for a hostile work environment standard which is to be objective the severe only two of the allegations even nominally related to professor gods protected faculty presentation about china's territorial activities perfectly appropriate for a geography department to be discussing geopolitical events there is no allegation of the district record held that the presentations themselves were derogatory in nature or objectively hostile in any way in the sport i think understands or should understand that should be very wary about inferring workplace discrimination from ordinary academic presentation offensive academic presentations within a university there are no questions about the discrimination claim hosmer environment claim i will move to the retaliation i am dressed briefly the district court properly held that  we think provides an independent ground for affirmative the retaliation claim alternately doesn't matter given the fact that professor graham has raised a tribal issue of retaliation the most that she does in her briefing is cast aspersions on these meeting minutes and reports implying that the fabricated this is just classic speculation that can survive a summary judgment and a lab the notion that college provost of hunter college w b six motion the death the complaint or the the defect would seem to be a lack of adequate allegations with respect to complera towards that's what it comes down to if i hear both the questions of the court and the argument of cuny that we didn't have in our complaint sufficient complera tours in similar position to do to profess a gun but of different racial backgrounds i would argue i think that is odd duty to plead that there that she was differently treated if the issue is if that becomes an issue of conflict that can be determined after summary judgment after trial it's necessary for us to plead that she was adversely treated and we do plead that but that and let me say that there are other examples one in one example her course they did she was taken off teaching a particular course and a less qualified instructor was was substituted again you've got to look at all these things you can't look at one maybe the one the lack of promotions is not is not sufficient but i would like to say that if this pleading defect was the problem she should not the case should not have been dismissed she should have been given the permission the permit to repleat and what happened young remaster now did you ask that no but that was as we discussed in our brief the scheduling made it really impossible let me also say one other thing with respect to the retaliation claim the original recommendation before this by the budget committee took it up was merely to change procedures not to remove her they removed her after they got notice that she filed the complaint that's the but for if they had merely reflected in hand ads recommendation we couldn't complain but what happened is they went further than they really were permitted to go and that's discussed in the briefs and they removed her after they learned about the o c complaint there is a but for now obviously if they didn't know about the complaint they couldn't have done it because of the complaint but we say that there is significant question as to when she learned of the filing because the rules of the o c were that it should  frankly i believe there is it would be your obligation to read it have you we have alleged that the committee knew prior to its decision we alleged that the committee knew and we think that the ruling the  regulations of the e e o c indicate that the community in one form or another maybe not by that notice but in one form or another human e the committee knew that the budget committee knew that she had filed the complaint we also have that evidence of press a current you can say i think that's subject to question of credibility do you believe it or do you not believe it there's enough question that this should not have been dismissed on summary judgment unless there are any further questions from the other judges will take the case under an advisement thank you very much to both of the counsel for their arguments today we greatly appreciate it