Opinion ID: 5539
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Olson's Rationale.

Text: The district court summarily accepted, without description or explanation, Olson's articulated nondiscriminatory 2 We also express concern for the short shrift which the district court gave the EEOC's external availability analysis, especially when we consider the dearth of countervailing evidence offered by Olson's expert. 9 reasons for its hiring and found that the EEOC failed to show that those articulated reasons were a pretext disguising discrimination. 803 F. Supp. at 1223. We disagree with the district court's assessment of Olson's proffered explanation. The record clearly demonstrates that any explanation which the district court may have perceived to be facially nondiscriminatory is, in fact, mere pretext. Discarding Mr. Watson's statement that Olson's customers prefer to be served by persons of their own culture, the only other reasons which may be gleaned from Olson's case are (1) the proximity of an applicant's residence to the restaurant, and (2) the racial make-up of the Spring Branch school district. While the former might conceivably satisfy the McDonnell Douglas-Teamsters test if there was a showing that proximity to the restaurant was either a critical factor or even a stated criteria in Olson's hiring guidelines, that showing was not made or even attempted. This leaves only the intimation that people from nearby were hired because only people from nearby would apply. However, we know that is not true, based upon Dr. Straszheim's review of Olson's applications. As for the second explanation, the racial make-up of the Spring Branch school district explaining the racial make-up of the employees, aside from ignoring conditions at the Bellaire and Katy stores and in their surrounding neighborhoods, presumes that Olson's potential work force is composed of area high school students. However, while it may be true that Olson's employees are predominantly 10 area high school students, the applications make it clear that Olson's available labor force includes many persons who are not area high school students.