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Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 10, 2024*

Decided December 17, 2024 

Before

DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge

JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge

DORIS L. PRYOR, Circuit Judge

No. 24-2089 

LINDAN LIN,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CARL DRUMMOND, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of 

Indiana, Hammond Division at 

Lafayette. 

No. 4:20-CV-97-TLS

Theresa L. Springmann, 

Judge. 

O R D E R

Lindan Lin, a professor at Purdue University, sued the Trustees of Purdue 

University, Carl Drummond (a vice chancellor), and Lachlan Whalen (a professor), 

under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. 

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and record 

adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the 

court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1

Case: 24-2089 Document: 24 Filed: 12/17/2024 Pages: 4
No. 24-2089 Page 2 

She contends that, based on her race and national origin, the defendants passed her up 

for two positions and subjected her to a hostile work environment. The district court 

entered summary judgment for the defendants. Because no evidence suggests that 

Purdue’s professed belief that Lin was less qualified for both positions was a lie, and no 

evidence shows that Lin’s work environment was unlawfully hostile, we affirm. 

We construe the record in favor of Lin, the non-moving party. See Barnes-Staples 

v. Carnahan, 88 F.4th 712, 715 (7th Cir. 2023). Lin, who identifies as “AsianAmerican/Chinese,” is a tenured professor at Purdue University, and her claims focus 

on three events in early 2019. 

First, Lin applied to become the acting chair of the College of Arts and Sciences. 

The notice for the position stated that candidates “must be a tenured member of the 

faculty and preference is given to a full professor.” When deciding between three 

tenured candidates, the dean running the hiring process stated that he weighed heavily 

the opinions of the staff and faculty. Deborah Huffman, a white associate professor, 

received the most positive feedback, and Lin received the most negative feedback. 

Based on this feedback, the dean recommended Huffman for the position, and 

Drummond, the decisionmaker, agreed and promoted her. 

The second event is Drummond’s decision to hire Lachlan Whalen, a white 

professor, instead of Lin, as editor-in-chief of an interdisciplinary journal. Drummond 

viewed Whalen and Lin as both qualified, but he attested that he offered the position to 

Whalen because of his previous experience on the editorial board of another 

university’s journal. 

Lastly, Lin asserts that Whalen and his associates harassed Lin by “spying on, 

following, and encountering her,” “throw[ing] hateful looks,” sneering at her, 

“stalk[ing]” her and “us[ing] hateful body language such as conspicuously turning their 

heads sideways.” 

After pursuing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission, Lin filed this suit. She contends that Purdue did not offer her 

the positions because of her race, national origin, and previous complaints about

discrimination, and it subjected her to a hostile work environment on the same bases. 

The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The judge

held that Lin failed to produce evidence rebutting the sincerity of Purdue’s proffered 

rationale for its hiring decisions—the successful candidates were better qualified—and 

she did not establish an unlawfully hostile work environment. 

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No. 24-2089 Page 3 

On appeal, Lin contests these rulings. We review the entry of summary judgment 

de novo. See Khungar v. Access Cmty. Health Network, 985 F.3d 565, 572 (7th Cir. 2021). 

We ask whether Lin furnished evidence that would permit a reasonable factfinder to 

conclude that her race, national original, or previous complaints about discrimination 

led to an adverse hiring decision, or that she faced an unlawfully hostile work 

environment. See Johnson v. Advoc. Health & Hosps. Corp., 892 F.3d 887, 894 (7th Cir. 

2018). 

Lin argues that a factfinder could infer from the record that her race, national 

origin, or previous complaints motivated both hiring decisions, but we disagree. 

Purdue furnished unrebutted evidence of an honest and legitimate rationale for its 

hiring choices: Drummond, the decisionmaker, believed that Lin was the inferior 

candidate. For the position of acting chair, Drummond attested without contradiction 

that he genuinely thought that Huffman outranked Lin because, even though Huffman 

was not a full professor and Purdue valued that status, the faculty’s superior support 

for Huffman over Lin was more important. For the second position of editor-in-chief, 

the record is undisputed that Drummond sincerely thought that Whalen was better

suited for the job because, even though both Whalen and Lin were qualified, only 

Whalen had previously held editorial roles. 

In the face of evidence of these legitimate and sincere beliefs, for Lin to stave off 

summary judgment she had to supply evidence from which a reasonable jury could 

find that these rationales were a pretext—a lie—to cover for unlawful discrimination. 

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 804 (1973); King v. Ford Motor Co., 872 

F.3d 833, 842–43 (7th Cir. 2017) (affirming summary judgment because no evidence

showed that employer's proffered, legitimate reason for adverse employment action 

was a lie). Lin did not. Instead, she observes that the process by which Purdue hired 

Huffman deviated from Purdue’s standard process in that Purdue allowed other faculty 

members to offer feedback. But the deviation from standard procedures in this case is

not enough to create an inference of pretext. See Barnes-Staples, 88 F.4th at 717. Unlike in 

previous cases in which a jury could rationally find that a deviation from standard 

procedures was a pretext for discrimination, here the different procedure “affected all 

candidates equally” and therefore did not mask discrimination. Id. Lin conjectures that 

Purdue used this process to enable racially biased faculty to discriminate against her. 

But speculation about Purdue’s motive for the deviation or the animus of faculty 

members is not a basis upon which a jury could find in her favor. See Johnson, 892 F.3d 

at 899. 

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The judge was also correct in entering summary judgment for the defendants on 

Lin’s claim that she faced a hostile work environment. To get past summary judgment 

on this claim, Lin had to offer evidence of harassment motivated by a protected status 

(such as her race or national origin) that was subjectively and objectively so severe or 

pervasive that it interfered with work. See Brooks v. Avancez, 39 F.4th 424, 441 (7th Cir. 

2022). She has not. Lin describes behavior—“hateful” looks, sneers, sideways glances, 

and other encounters—but she does not tie the motivation for the behavior to her race 

or national origin. Likewise, she does not cite any authority suggesting that these nonverbal, no-contact looks and glances were objectively severe or pervasive enough to 

interfere with work. Thus, no reasonable factfinder could decide that Purdue created an 

unlawful hostile work environment. 

AFFIRMED

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