Opinion ID: 350723
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Departure From Policy Manual Standards

Text: 29 Chavez also charges that the failure of the district to follow its own standards concerning qualifications for department chairpersons was impermissibly discriminatory under Title VII. We disagree. 30 Chavez has not shown that the failure of the district to follow its own standards had a disproportionately unfavorable impact on minorities. Indeed, as we have already seen, both Mexican-Americans who sought department head positions at Marcos de Niza were appointed to be the heads of their respective departments. This is striking evidence that the school's departure from policy manual standards did not result in the exclusion of minorities. 31 Nevertheless, Chavez asserts that the district was under an affirmative duty to impose pertinent, objective criteria for the hiring of personnel and to follow those criteria. In support of this proposition, she cites Carey v. Greyhound Bus Co., 500 F.2d 1372 (5th Cir. 1974) and Baxter v. Savannah Sugar Refining Corp., 495 F.2d 437 (5th Cir.), cert. denied,419 U.S. 1033, 95 S.Ct. 515, 42 L.Ed.2d 308 (1974). But the question before us is not whether the district is under an affirmative duty to impose objective standards; it is whether the failure to impose and follow such standards is impermissibly discriminatory. Both Carey and Baxter were cases where the evidence raised an inference that there had been discrimination against minorities and that the lack of objective standards in hiring was an instrumental factor in this result. Here, however, we have already determined that the failure of the district to follow the policy manual standards was not discriminatory. 32 We conclude that Chavez has failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII with regard to the district's departure from the policy manual standards.