Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03648/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03648-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Chicago Board of Education
Appellee
Joyce Hutchens
Appellant
Amanda Rivera
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 13-3648 

JOYCE HUTCHENS, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION and AMANDA RIVERA, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 09 C 7931 — Edmond E. Chang, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED MARCH 3, 2015 — DECIDED MARCH 24, 2015 

____________________ 

Before POSNER, KANNE, and TINDER, Circuit Judges. 

POSNER, Circuit Judge. Joyce Hutchens, the plaintiff in this 

suit charging racial discrimination in employment in violation of federal law, is a black woman. A large-scale layoff in 

the Chicago public schools system’s Professional Development Unit, where she worked, required the unit to decide 

whether to retain her or a white woman, Deborah Glowacki, 

who Hutchens argues was less qualified than she and was 

retained in place of her only because the unit’s director at the 

Case: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
2 No. 13-3648 

time, defendant Amanda Rivera, preferred whites to blacks. 

The district judge granted summary judgment in favor of 

both defendants (the other defendant being the Chicago 

Board of Education) on the ground that they’d presented a 

justification for the replacement that was not merely a “pretext”—“deceit used to cover one’s tracks.” Grube v. Lau Industries, Inc., 257 F.3d 723, 730 (7th Cir. 2001). 

Hutchens had been a “team leader” in the National 

Board Certification subunit of the Professional Development 

Unit. The subunit’s job was to help teachers obtain National 

Board Certification, which “will distinguish you as an accomplished, effective teacher who has met the highest 

standards in the profession.” National Board for Professional 

Teaching Standards, “Why Certify?” www.boardcertifiedte

achers.org/about-certification/why-certify (visited March 17, 

2015, as were the other websites cited in this opinion). After 

a reorganization of the Professional Development Unit, 

Hutchens was designated a “curriculum facilitator.” She 

continued to assist candidates for National Board Certification (even though the National Board Certification subunit 

had been abolished in the reorganization), but now she also 

assisted inexperienced teachers. Her supervisor after the reorganization was Karen Cushing. 

Glowacki was hired to be another curriculum facilitator 

in the Professional Development Unit; her duties were similar to Hutchens’. The two women have basically similar educational backgrounds, but somewhat different vocational 

backgrounds. Hutchens had taught in public high schools in 

Chicago for eleven years, the first five of them at Lincoln 

Park High School (an elite Chicago public school, see “Lincoln Park High School (Chicago),” Wikipedia, http://en.

Case: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
No. 13-3648 3 

wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_High_School_(Chicago)), 

from 1994 to 1999, and the last six of them at Consuella B. 

York Alternative High School from 2002 to 2008. York is a 

public high school administered by the Chicago Board of 

Education but located on the grounds of the Cook County 

Jail; the students are detainees of the jail aged 17 to 21. Cook 

County Sheriff’s Office, Programs and Services—Education, 

www.cookcountysheriff.com/doc/doc_ProgramsAndService

s.html. 

Between 1999 and 2002 (the interval between her two 

teaching stints), Hutchens owned and operated her own 

firm, JDH Training & Communications Group, offering 

training in “life skills” to professionals and corporations. In 

that capacity she was one of three women to receive a Hall 

of Fame Award from the Women’s Business Development 

Center. See Chinta Strausberg, “Entrepreneurial Summit for 

Women Slated,” Chicago Defender, Sept. 7, 2000. She testified 

that she returned to teaching because she missed the students. The record does not make clear why upon her return 

to teaching she was assigned to York, though we offer a conjecture later. 

As for Glowacki’s teaching career, she testified that she 

had taught second through seventh grades at St. Gabriel’s 

Elementary School (a Catholic parochial school) for four 

years and then fifth through eighth grades at St. Simons 

Catholic School for three years. She didn’t indicate the dates 

of these teaching stints but testified that her “next job” was 

teaching at McClellan Elementary School, a Chicago public 

school, beginning in 1997 or 1998. She further testified that 

upon going to work for the public school system she had 

been given two years of credit for her time teaching in the 

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4 No. 13-3648 

parochial schools. For unexplained reasons her annual salary 

in the Professional Development Unit exceeded Hutchens’ 

by almost $7,000 even though both had the same jobs in the 

unit and had been employed by the Chicago public school 

system for roughly the same length of time. There is no evidence that the “credit” that Glowacki received when she began working for the public school system accounted either 

for her higher salary or for her rather than Hutchens being 

retained by the Professional Development Unit rather than 

laid off. 

Glowacki was hired by the Professional Development 

Unit in January 2009, eight months after Hutchens. In April 

of that year Alan Anderson, of the Board of Education’s Department of Human Resources, was instructed to reorganize 

the unit. As part of the reorganization both Hutchens’ and 

Glowacki’s jobs were abolished and in June the two of them 

were placed on the layoff list. But later that month, before 

the layoffs were implemented, Anderson removed Glowacki 

but not Hutchens from the list and so Hutchens was laid off 

and Glowacki retained. After receiving a right to sue letter 

from the EEOC, Hutchens brought this suit. 

Other employees in the Professional Development Unit 

were laid off besides her, but it appears that either Glowacki 

or Hutchens was going to be retained and the suit charges 

that Glowacki was retained instead of Hutchens because of 

her race. The credentials and experience of the two women 

were similar, but since Hutchens had been employed in the 

Professional Development Unit longer than Glowacki one 

might have expected Glowacki to be laid off rather than 

Hutchens unless Glowacki was the better worker. A reasonable jury could also have found that Hutchens had a strongCase: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
No. 13-3648 5 

er resumé than Glowacki, given the standing of the Lincoln 

Park school and the challenge of teaching jail detainees. And 

there was more: Hutchens had two master’s degrees (journalism in 1987 and education in 1997), while Glowacki had 

only one (in a combined teaching and leadership program; 

she didn’t indicate the year). Hutchens had 12 additional 

graduate-level hours in education, and Glowacki did not testify that she had any continuing-education credits. Both 

were National Board Certified but Hutchens was certified to 

teach high school English and journalism and middle school 

language arts, business education, marketing, and management, while Glowacki testified to no certification other than 

the National Board. An article in the May 15, 2007 edition of 

the Chicago Sun-Times entitled “These Educators Have Something to Teach Us All” discusses the five Chicago public 

school teachers who had just won the “Unilever Performance Plus Award” by going to “extraordinary lengths to 

make a difference in their students’ lives.” Hutchens, but not 

Glowacki, is named as one the recipients of the award. The 

article states that while at York she had “developed an entrepreneurial training program that teaches students skills 

needed to start a business.” 

It’s true that Rivera had hired Hutchens, and true too 

that while Glowacki is Polish-American (Glowacki is a 

Polish name—if you doubt this, Google the name) and therefore white, Rivera is Puerto Rican. But according to the 2000 

Census more than 80 percent of Puerto Ricans consider 

themselves white and only 8 percent black. See “Racism in 

Puerto Rico,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

_in_Puerto_Rico#Contemporary_Demographics. Rivera in 

any event is white. See LSNA (Logan Square Neighborhood 

Association), Issues and Programs, “Rivera, Amanda” (phoCase: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
6 No. 13-3648 

tograph), www.lsna.net/Issues-and-programs/Events/50thAnniversary/Issues-and-programs/Events/Rivera-Amanda.

html. 

Having hired Glowacki, Rivera had to choose between 

the black woman she had hired and the white woman she 

had hired and she may have picked the white woman on racial grounds in the face of that woman’s seemingly inferior 

credentials. The question is whether a reasonable jury could 

so find on the basis of the evidence submitted in pretrial discovery. If so, summary judgment should not have been 

granted in favor of the defendants. 

Anderson submitted a declaration to the EEOC in which 

he said that he’d decided to retain Glowacki because she had 

“previously supported” and was “knowledgeable in the National Board Certification program,” whereas Hutchens, he 

said, “was not supporting” and “was not as knowledgeable 

in the National Board Certification program.” That was a 

strange thing to say, given that Hutchens had been hired by 

the unit that was responsible for that program before 

Glowacki. In fact Anderson was misled. He had discussed 

layoffs with Rivera (who remember was the director of the 

Professional Development Unit), and she had recommended 

that Glowacki not be laid off (yet without saying anything 

about Glowacki’s background or qualifications) and had 

failed even to mention Hutchens, let alone say anything 

about her background and qualifications. 

Thus in picking Glowacki to survive the cut, Anderson 

was acting on incomplete information furnished by Rivera. 

In his deposition Anderson acknowledged that he hadn’t 

known that Hutchens had a National Board Certification—

let alone that she’d received it a year before Glowacki had—

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No. 13-3648 7 

and further acknowledged that it “would have been useful” 

to him to have known that. He testified without contradiction that he had never met or even heard of Hutchens even 

though the Professional Development Unit, where she 

worked, was part of the Department of Human Resources, 

where he worked. 

The district judge acknowledged that this “one particular 

fact [Hutchens’ earlier receipt of the National Board Certification] would have been helpful [to Anderson] in deciding 

which employee to retain,” but decided that its “significance 

... paled in comparison to Hutchens’s performance problems.” We’ll see that the evidence that she had such problems was weak, heavily contested, and possibly fabricated—

as the judge failed to note. 

Anderson further testified that he “absolutely” would 

have considered, had he known about, emails to and from 

coworkers of Hutchens indicating that right up until she was 

laid off she was working cooperatively with her coworkers. 

Not only was Anderson’s decision in favor of Glowacki 

based on misinformation given him by Rivera, but he admitted that his declaration to the EEOC that we mentioned had 

been prepared by the Board of Education’s counsel and had 

been based not on Anderson’s personal knowledge but instead on information supplied by Rivera. She was therefore 

the key witness for the Board, as well as for herself as the 

Board’s codefendant. 

She testified in her deposition that she had preferred 

Glowacki to Hutchens because she thought the former better 

able to “sell the program and recruit, build relationships, establish rapport, [and] work in collaboration.” She testified 

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8 No. 13-3648 

that Hutchens “isolated herself” during meetings and didn’t 

volunteer to do “anything extra.” 

Cushing, who remember was Hutchens’ and Glowacki’s 

supervisor, was also deposed and she testified that Hutchens 

exhibited poor “interpersonal skills,” was “pretty withdrawn from working” (whatever that means), wasn’t interested in working “with other people,” and “should have 

known” more than she did but “appeared to not be interested in learning how to do more things,” that she had “poor 

tech skills” and her work “needed more editing” than 

Glowacki’s did and that in evaluating the performance of the 

two in 2009 Cushing had rated Hutchens as having “partially met expectations” but Glowacki as having “met and exceeded” expectations. Presumably the performance evaluations were written, yet no written evaluations were submitted in discovery (despite which the district judge referred to 

Glowacki’s “comparatively superior performance evaluations”). Cushing thought the evaluations had been destroyed. Hutchens in her deposition denied having seen an 

evaluation of herself in 2009 and stated that she was not 

aware of having been formally evaluated. 

Another employee, Lily McDonagh, who was Hutchens’ 

supervisor between July and November 2008 (before 

Glowacki was hired), testified that Timothy Jackson, another 

employee whom she supervised, complained to her once 

about “constant bickering” among four other employees, including Hutchens. McDonagh first testified that Hutchens, 

Carla Vides, and Tabita Sherfinski, as well as Jackson, had 

all complained about the bickering but later said that Vides 

and Sherfinski, although they had made some other comCase: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
No. 13-3648 9 

plaints about Hutchens, had not accused her of bickering. 

Nor had Yvonne Williams, another member of the unit. 

Rivera, Vides, Hutchens, Sherfinski, Jackson, and Williams are all listed as “organizers” on a document Hutchens 

submitted in discovery called “Unity 2008: Increasing 

NBCTs [National Board Certified Teachers] of Color for a 

Diverse Student Population: Proposal to Recruit and Increase the Number of Minority National Board Certified 

Teachers in the Chicago Public Schools.” So the unit was 

able to collaborate successfully on a project that Hutchens 

had spearheaded. That project tended also to refute testimony by Rivera and Cushing that Hutchens failed to take initiative on projects, since Unity 2008 was her project. Cushing 

also acknowledged that Hutchens was very interested in developing strategies to recruit more minority teachers for National Board Certification; the Unity 2008 document emphasizes (at page 4) the racially uneven distribution of National 

Board Certifications among teachers in Chicago public 

schools. 

Asked at her deposition whether there was any “documentation” of the alleged bickering, McDonagh said no and 

explained that “documentation wouldn’t have been required 

because it wasn’t—there was nothing egregious. It wasn’t at 

the point of discipline. So it was more about an advisory role 

and working to get them to be more collaborative with one 

another.” Neither McDonagh nor any other witness explained what the bickering was about. McDonagh did testify 

that when she asked Hutchens about it Hutchens had told 

her “that she was not going to get involved,” “that she was 

embarrassed that [McDonagh had] been apprised of what 

was occurring because it was not her style,” “that she was 

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10 No. 13-3648 

not going to be a party to this. That this was between the 

other people on the team and she was going to rise above it.” 

The team worked in one room, so doubtless there was a lot 

of chatter some of which could be characterized as bickering. 

An odd feature of the bickering issue is that McDonagh 

did not herself observe bickering; she just listened to complaints about it, apparently making no effort to evaluate the 

accuracy of the complaints. Hers was thus not the best evidence—in fact was mainly hearsay. Vides, Sherfinski, and 

Williams also testified. Vides tried to place the bickering issue in perspective by pointing out that “we had a room 

filled with chiefs, and we didn’t have any Indians. ... [B]eing 

that we were all team leads and then me having to tell 

team leads what to do and I was equal to them, that was 

the point of contention within the office. So it wasn’t so 

much that we didn’t get along because we were all so difficult. We were all leaders and we all, literally, had leadership skills and personalities; and so there was, you know, 

there was bumping of heads, you know, especially like I 

said if I had to tell people what to do[,] and I had the same 

title.” 

Vides further testified that Hutchens had a “strong understanding” of the National Board Certification program, 

was an “effective collaborator with work colleagues,” and 

had “strong writing skills. ... [S]he had said that she was a 

journalist; and then she was always asked to write the talking points for Arne Duncan [former CEO of the Chicago 

public school system, now U.S. Secretary of Education]. And 

then I [Vides] would always have [Hutchens] edit my 

work.” 

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No. 13-3648 11 

Sherfinski didn’t testify about bickering, but said that 

both Vides and Hutchens were “difficult to work with,” 

Hutchens because “she was focused on certain tasks that she 

wanted to accomplish, but at least I found her willing to help 

with the work that needed to be done.” Sherfinski later 

worked with both Hutchens and Glowacki. She testified that 

Hutchens and Glowacki knew “just as much about National 

Board, which was far less than what I knew.” Sherfinski also 

said that Glowacki was “willing to work” but that Hutchens 

was “checked out,” based on her “body language”—she 

“leans back; she’s closed off; she’s [sic] gets a fierce look in 

her face.” Sherfinski added that Hutchens had “a scowl that 

means stay away” and was “very, very irritable,” though she 

acknowledged that it was a “good thing” that Hutchens 

wanted to get more minority teachers National Board Certified. 

Williams, on the other hand, testified that Hutchens “got 

along with people” but would ask Sherfinski to turn her music down, since they were all in one big room; obviously 

there was no love lost between Hutchens and Sherfinski. 

Williams also said that Hutchens “communicated with everyone” and “worked well” with her, Vides, and Jackson. She 

testified that Hutchens “would initiate” birthday celebrations for the members of the team—“something she enjoyed 

doing was celebrating people’s birthdays. ... She communicated with everyone. She helped people when they came into the facility. She worked well with me. ... I’ve never seen 

her, you know, kind of be mean to people or standoffish.” 

There was much else in this vein. 

Rivera testified that she had known about “issues with 

tardiness [of Hutchens].” But she did not say how or from 

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12 No. 13-3648 

whom she had acquired this knowledge. She did not name a 

single person who had informed her about Hutchens’ alleged tardiness, though they would have been Rivera’s own 

subordinates. She referred to a chart that she said showed 

absences and tardiness by Hutchens, but the chart was not 

placed in the record. There were references to lost documents that if they had still existed would, the defense witnesses testified, corroborate Rivera’s and Cushing’s testimony. A reasonable jury might well be skeptical of such a 

claim. 

Cushing testified that on one occasion she had to speak 

to Hutchens about several late arrivals (by Hutchens) at 

work. But she conceded that she had been “satisfied” that 

most of the suspected “tardies” were false alarms because 

they referred to times at which Hutchens had been working 

on public school business that required her to be out of her 

office. Cushing further testified that she thought she recalled 

seeing Hutchens sleeping during a training session but 

“couldn’t tell you for sure,” while Rivera testified that members of her staff had told her that Hutchens was sleeping at 

work (more hearsay). Yet neither Rivera nor Cushing ever 

disciplined Hutchens for sleeping during work or even mentioned the subject to her. The judge said that Cushing “knew 

for sure” that Hutchens’ “eyes were closed and that Hutchens was not engaged in the training.” But the judge added 

that Cushing had “conceded that she could not definitely say 

that Hutchens was in fact in a state of sleep” and indeed he 

scoffed at the idea that she could have known that.

The defense claimed that Rivera knew that Hutchens 

sometimes failed to follow through on work assignments 

that she was given. But Rivera testified that it was not she 

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No. 13-3648 13 

who knew this, but Cushing—but Cushing did not testify to 

it. 

The record contains a rave letter of recommendation that 

Cushing had written for Hutchens, who having just been 

laid off was looking for another job. Of course letters of recommendation for laid-off employees tend to exaggerate, yet 

Cushing testified that the letter was “mostly” true, except 

when it said that Hutchens “willingly accept[s] new challenges” was a “stretch.” The judge said that the “letter was 

no different than one Cushing would give to anyone in the 

[Professional Development] Unit who asked for one.” We 

can’t find the basis for this statement, and it’s almost certainly false, given certain details in the letter, attested as true by 

Cushing, that (except for the last one) would not have applied to everyone in the unit: that Hutchens “wrote many of 

the articles publicizing the program and events” (the “program” is presumably the program of the unit); “in addition 

to her writing talents, she has also supported recruitment of 

NBC [National Board Certification] candidates by presenting 

information sessions around the city,” “presented trainings 

for lead mentors and mentors in the GOLDEN Teachers 

program as well as those for the CPS Excellence in Teaching 

pilot program,” “is well regarded as a facilitator of professional development by her audiences,” and “is conscientious 

and dependable.” Cushing did say that she “made the offer 

[to write a letter of reference] to all the people who worked 

for me that if they needed a letter of reference that I would 

provide one,” but she didn’t say that she wrote the identical 

letter for everyone. 

And remember Cushing’s testimony about Hutchens’ 

need for editing? That testimony was in tension not only 

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14 No. 13-3648 

with Vides’ testimony but also with Cushing’s having referred twice, in parts of the letter of recommendation that 

she did not call a “stretch,” to Hutchens’ “writing talents,” 

adding that Hutchens’ “writing talents are an asset.” Hutchens appeared pro se in this appeal. Whether because of, or in 

spite of, not being a lawyer, her two briefs—opening and reply—are indeed well written. 

Besides the letter of recommendation and her denial that 

she had received a formal evaluation, Hutchens presented 

emails by her coworkers to her which indicated that she was 

cooperative and her work for the Professional Development 

Unit good. 

Remarkably in light of our summary of the record, the 

district judge, in granting summary judgment said that the 

honesty of the defendants’ beliefs about the relative qualities 

of Hutchens and Glowacki could not reasonably be questioned. In fact, as our summary of the evidence reveals, there 

is considerable doubt about the honesty of Rivera and Cushing, the main witnesses for the defense, and Sherfinski, who 

seems to have had a private quarrel with Hutchens over the 

loudness of the music in the room in which they both 

worked. Anderson was just a cat’s paw of Rivera, Vides’ testimony was on the whole favorable to Hutchens—Williams’s 

even more so—and McDonagh’s testimony was hearsay. 

The district judge remarked that Anderson is black, as if 

to imply that Anderson’s decision to lay off Hutchens rather 

than Glowacki could not have been discriminatory. In fact 

Anderson had never met Hutchens, and there is nothing to 

suggest that he knew her race. Moreover, he was as we said 

a cat’s paw, which is to say an unknowing tool of Rivera. 

See, e.g., Smith v. Bray, 681 F.3d 888, 897 (7th Cir. 2012). He 

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No. 13-3648 15 

based his decision to retain Glowacki rather than Hutchens 

(despite the latter’s greater seniority and apparently superior 

credentials) on what Rivera told him—and as she did not 

mention Hutchens he had no alternative to retaining 

Glowacki, which automatically terminated Hutchens. 

The judge said that Hutchens’ having taught at a “prison 

school” made her less qualified for a professionaldevelopment position than Glowacki. There is no reason, let 

alone evidence, for such a conclusion. The “prison school” in 

Cook County Jail is a public high school administered by the 

Board of Education. It differs from other public high schools 

mainly in the average age and composition of its student 

body. It must be tough to teach, year after year, inmates 

many of whom are older than most high school seniors (for 

remember that the students at York range in age from 17 to 

21). The district judge thought it a significant point in favor 

of the defendants that only 1 percent of Chicago’s public 

schools are “prison schools,” and that therefore Hutchens 

couldn’t have been familiar with the Professional Development Unit. But she had been hired into that unit with 

knowledge of her background, which included not only her 

time at the “prison school” but also five years of teaching at 

one of Chicago’s very best public high schools. The nature, 

and significance for the professional-development job, of 

Glowacki’s parochial school and public elementary school 

careers, were not explored at all. (Of course, zero percent of 

public schools in Chicago are parochial schools.) 

The judge did not remark the surprising fact that the defendants failed to submit a single document that might have 

corroborated any of the testimony of Rivera or Cushing—

testimony, riddled with unreliable hearsay (not all hearsay is 

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16 No. 13-3648 

unreliable, but this hearsay is), that needed documentary 

backup. Instead the judge summed up his take on the case 

by stating that “What is clear is that Defendants honestly believed that Glowacki was the better employee.” What is clear 

is that this was the decision-maker’s belief—Anderson’s—

since Glowacki was the only candidate offered to him (as in 

a Soviet election). What is unclear is whether he based the 

decision on the honest beliefs of Rivera or on dishonest beliefs, and whether the testimony given by Rivera and Cushing in their depositions had any significant truth value at all. 

A reasonable jury could credit Hutchens’ evidence while 

rejecting Rivera’s and Cushing’s, and impressed by Hutchens’ credentials, her seniority over Glowacki, her earlier receipt of National Board Certification, her other credentials 

superior to Glowacki’s, her writing skills, and her toughness 

in teaching inmates of Cook County Jail year after year, 

could conclude that she was better qualified for the job than 

Glowacki. It’s true that having found all these facts in favor 

of Hutchens, that reasonable jury might nevertheless deem 

Hutchens a victim not of racism but of error, ineptitude, 

carelessness, or personal like or dislike, unrelated to race. 

Certainly the Professional Development Unit seems to have 

been poorly managed, with little effort at recordkeeping despite the befuddled recollections of key members of the unit; 

Hutchens may have been a victim of incompetence rather 

than of racism. 

But equally (so far as one can judge from a record limited 

to evidence obtained in pretrial discovery) a reasonable jury 

might deem Rivera’s and Cushing’s testimony a tissue of lies 

(the polite term is “pretext”), Hutchens distinctly better 

qualified for retention than Glowacki (about whom the recCase: 13-3648 Document: 46 Filed: 03/24/2015 Pages: 17
No. 13-3648 17 

ord contains little information), and the latter’s being retained instead of Hutchens a consequence (for why else all 

the lies?) of a preference for a person of the same race, by the 

persons who testified against Hutchens. See Hitchcock v. Angel Corps, Inc., 718 F.3d 733, 738 (7th Cir. 2013) (“shifting explanations” for an adverse employment action may give rise 

to an inference of pretext); Ondricko v. MGM Grand Detroit, 

LLC, 689 F.3d 642, 651 (6th Cir. 2012) (jury could reasonably 

disbelieve an employer’s explanation for a decision inconsistent with the employer’s prior conduct); Vaughn v. Woodforest Bank, 665 F.3d 632, 638–40 (5th Cir. 2011) (an employee 

can create a litigable issue by submitting evidence that disputes the employer’s charge of “unsatisfactory conduct”); 

Holcomb v. Iona College, 521 F.3d 130, 141–44 (2d Cir. 2008) (a 

reasonable jury could choose among several possible motives when weighing evidence for and against alleged discrimination). The district judge himself, by emphasizing his 

belief that the defendants’ witnesses had been “honest,” implied correctly that if they were liars a reasonable jury could 

conclude that Hutchens’ race had been a decisive factor in 

the decision to prefer Glowacki over her. But these are factual issues for a jury to resolve. 

The district court’s judgment as to Count II, alleging racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and 

Count III, alleging racial discrimination in violation of Title 

VII, is reversed and the case remanded for trial on those 

counts. The district court’s dismissal of the other counts is 

uncontested, and is affirmed. 

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.

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