Opinion ID: 721358
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Vitug's Failure to Promote Claim

Text: 15 Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is unlawful for an employer: 16 (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or 17 (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. 18 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)-(2). The bulk of Vitug's amended complaint is devoted to detailing the circumstances surrounding Multistate's decision not to promote him to the position of field audit supervisor and then claiming that Multistate's failure to promote him was discrimination on the basis of his religion and national origin in violation of Title VII. 19 Vitug may prove this claim by demonstrating either that Multistate's failure to promote him was disparate treatment or that Multistate's procedures for determining promotions have a disparate impact. Wards Cove Packing Co., Inc. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642, 645-46, 109 S.Ct. 2115, 2119, 104 L.Ed.2d 733 (1989); Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 985-87, 108 S.Ct. 2777, 2784-85, 101 L.Ed.2d 827 (1988); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431, 91 S.Ct. 849, 853, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971). Disparate treatment, the most easily understood type of discrimination, occurs when a plaintiff is intentionally treated less favorably than others simply because of his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Watson, 487 U.S. at 985-86, 108 S.Ct. at 2784 (quoting Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 1854 n. 15, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977)). See also Wards Cove Packing, 490 U.S. at 645, 109 S.Ct. at 2118-19. It requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendants acted with actual discriminatory intent. Watson, 487 U.S. at 986, 108 S.Ct. at 2784. A claim of disparate impact, on the other hand, does not require a showing that the defendants intended to discriminate against the plaintiff. Wards Cove Packing, 490 U.S. at 645-46, 109 S.Ct. at 2119. A disparate impact exists where a specified employment practice, although neutral on its face, has a disproportionally negative effect on members of a legally protected class. Watson, 487 U.S. at 986-87, 108 S.Ct. at 2784-85. The disparate impact theory of Title VII liability may be utilized to challenge both objective and, as here, subjective selection processes. Id. at 991, 108 S.Ct. at 2787.
20 In order to establish a prima facie case of disparate impact, a plaintiff must first isolate and identify the specific employment practices that are allegedly responsible for any observed statistical disparities. Id. at 994, 108 S.Ct. at 2789. Once the plaintiff has indicated these allegedly discriminatory employment practices, he must demonstrate causation by offering statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotion because of their membership in a protected group. Id. 21 Vitug has satisfied the first half of this burden by singling out Multistate's word-of-mouth recruitment, and purely subjective evaluations based upon oral interviews as the practices he claims have a discriminatory effect. To establish the second half of his prima facie case, however, Vitug must put forth statistical evidence sufficient to show that Multistate's utilization of word-of-mouth recruitment and subjective interview evaluations directly result in a disproportionate failure to hire or promote Asian or Catholic applicants. 22 Vitug's evidence on this issue consists of the affidavits of two expert witnesses: (1) Neil Lane, a cancer statistician from The University of Chicago; and (2) Dr. Jane Halpert, an associate professor of psychology at DePaul University. Lane offers no statistics whatsoever comparing Multistate's hiring and promotion of Asians, Catholics, or other minorities for auditor or management positions with data from the industry as a whole--a comparison that would demonstrate whether Multistate's employment practices have a disproportionately negative effect on minority applicants for auditor or management positions. The Supreme Court has held that this type of statistical comparison generally forms the proper basis for the initial inquiry in a disparate-impact case. Wards Cove Packing, 490 U.S. at 650-51, 109 S.Ct. at 2121. Yet, Lane essentially ignores the question of what statistical effect Multistate's employment practices have had on the number of minorities hired and promoted; he mentions Multistate's minority representation only once, stating: Before August 1990, the average minority presence among auditors was only about 10 percent. This rate has improved since that time among auditors, but still remains low among management-level employees. Lane offers no statistics or data in support of this conclusory assertion. 23 Instead, the thrust of Lane's affidavit is that Multistate's hiring and promotion procedure constitutes a mechanism that lends itself to discrimination. Lane claims that under Multistate's interview procedure, the statistical correlation between the separate panelists' scorings of applicant responses is low; that the correlation between the scores awarded to an applicant and the quality of an applicant's resume traits is low; and that there are various structural inconsistencies within the interview procedure. From this, Lane concludes that Multistate's interview process is a poor indicator of a candidate's ability. 24 Lane's conclusions, however, support only the inference that Multistate's selection process is subjective--at worst, that it is arbitrary and unreliable. But arbitrariness alone does not amount to discrimination. It is not enough for a plaintiff to demonstrate that an employment practice could theoretically be used to discriminate--Title VII does not forbid subjective selection processes. Under a disparate impact theory of discrimination, a plaintiff may successfully attack a subjective and arbitrary hiring procedure only if it has a disproportionately negative effect on members of a protected class. Put simply, success under a disparate impact theory of discrimination requires a showing of disparate impact. Absent such a showing, it is not the place of this court to judge the effectiveness or accuracy of a company's interview procedures. 25 Dr. Halpert's affidavit similarly makes no statistical comparison between Multistate's hiring or promotion of minorities and the hiring or representation of minorities in similar positions in the workforce. She does note that three of the six employees in Multistate's Chicago office are born-again Christians, but without a comparison to the number of Protestants in the industry as a whole, this observation has little probative value. Instead, Dr. Halpert, like Lane, touts the ineffectiveness of Multistate's selection procedures. She notes that due to its inherent unreliability and lack of validation from actual performance, Multistate's hiring process is well below professional standards. She criticizes its lack of structure, noting that the interview questions have no correct answers and that the scores are not standardized. From these observations, Dr. Halpert makes a fantastical leap to concluding that Multistate has a discriminatory preference for hiring and promoting born-again Christians, that Koenig is instrumental in furthering this pattern of discrimination, and that Koenig and the other interviewers discriminated against Vitug by virtue of his religion and national origin. These conclusory allegations, however, are completely unsubstantiated by any reasoning or statistical evidence. Like Lane, Dr. Halpert's observations prove nothing more than the subjective, perhaps even arbitrary, nature of Multistate's selection process. Thus, Vitug has failed to offer any meaningful evidence whatsoever to support his claim that Multistate's word-of-mouth hiring and subjective interview evaluations have a disproportionately negative impact on minority applicants. 26 The defendants, on the other hand, submitted the affidavit of Elisabeth Landes, a specialist in labor economics who is a senior economist and vice president of the consulting firm, Lexecon, Inc. Landes observed that Multistate had hired or promoted eighteen auditors since March 1988, when Multistate began to use the challenged interview procedure. Of those auditors hired, six (or 33 percent) were minorities, and four (or 22.2 percent) were Asians/Pacific Islanders. Landes compared these figures with the total percentage of minorities among accountants and auditors in the national workforce, 16.7 percent. Thus, Landes's data demonstrate that, contrary to what Vitug needed to prove, Multistate's challenged hiring practices actually have a favorable rather than a negative effect on minority applicants in general, and Asians/Pacific Islanders in particular. 3
27 In order to establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment in a hiring or promotion decision context, the plaintiff must demonstrate (1) that he belonged to a protected class; (2) that he applied and was qualified for a particular position; (3) that he was not offered the position; and (4) that the position remained open to others after the plaintiff was rejected. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 1824, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Once the plaintiff has established his prima facie case, a presumption of discrimination is created, and the burden of production shifts to the defendants to present evidence of a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for their unfavorable treatment of the plaintiff. St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506-07, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 2747, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993). As with other rebuttable presumptions, although the burden of production is shifted to the defendants, [t]he ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff. Id. at 507, 113 S.Ct. at 2747 (quoting Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1093, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981)). If the defendants satisfy their burden and articulate a nondiscriminatory reason for their actions, the burden of production reverts back to the plaintiff and merges with his ultimate burden of persuading the factfinder that the defendants' proffered reason is pretextual and that he was actually the victim of intentionally discriminatory conduct. St. Mary's Honor Ctr., 509 U.S. at 507-08, 113 S.Ct. at 2747-48. 28 With respect to plaintiff's prima facie case, both parties agree that Vitug, who is a Catholic and a Filipino, applied and was rejected for the position of field audit supervisor and that the position was instead offered to Jennings, a non-Filipino and born-again Christian. Although the parties dispute Vitug's qualification for the position, we must view all facts in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, and we therefore conclude that Vitug has established his prima facie case. 29 To rebut the plaintiff's prima facie case, the defendants have presented evidence that Vitug was not offered the field audit supervisor position because three separate interviewers unanimously considered him the least-qualified among six applicants interviewing for the job. The ultimate burden thus falls upon Vitug to prove that the defendants' explanation is merely pretextual and that Vitug was instead rejected for promotion because of his religion or his national origin. 30 To support this claim, Vitug again offers the affidavits of Lane and Dr. Halpert. As discussed above, however, the analyses of Vitug's expert witnesses demonstrate only that Multistate's interview process is subjective, and perhaps unreliable. But just as this was not evidence that the interview process had a disproportionately negative effect on members of Vitug's religious or ethnic group, it is also not evidence that Vitug was intentionally passed over for promotion simply because of his religion or national origin. Demonstrating that an interview process is influenced by subjective factors does not go any distance toward proving that Vitug's religion or national origin were among those subjective factors. Vitug admits that prior to being rejected for the field audit supervisor position, he never had any reason to suspect religious or ethnic bias against him at Multistate. Vitug has offered no evidence of any of the interviewers ever making a derogatory or insensitive remark concerning his religion or national origin. Neither has Vitug claimed that any of the interview questions were inappropriate. His claim is essentially that Koenig possessed the intent to discriminate against all but white, born-again Christians and that this discriminatory animus directly resulted in Vitug's failure to be promoted. 31 This claim fails first due to the paucity of evidence concerning Koenig's intent to discriminate against Vitug. Vitug can offer no evidence of Koenig ever making any derogatory or insensitive remarks concerning--or acting in a derisive manner toward--Vitug's religion or national origin. Instead, Vitug offers the testimony of two Multistate employees, John Clancy and Jerry Birk. In his affidavit, Clancy explains that while working for the California Franchise Tax Board, he knew Les Koenig, who at that time worked in the same building at the Colorado Tax Board. Clancy claims that when a position became available at the Colorado Tax Board, Koenig made only minimal attempts to comply with EEOC notice requirements because Koenig said he did not want certain people from the California Franchise Tax Board applying for the job. Given that there were many minorities at the California Franchise Tax Board, Clancy interpreted this statement to mean that Les Koenig did not want to hire minorities for the position. Clancy also recounts a time when Koenig stated, I want to work with people I get along with. Clancy states that he understood Les Koenig's desire to work with people he got along with as wanting to work only with whites. However, Clancy bases this interpretation on the fact that he knew Jennings once had personality differences with a minority supervisor. All in all, despite Clancy's broad understandings, this testimony presents no evidence whatsoever indicating Koenig's sentiments with respect to minorities. 32 Ostensibly to demonstrate Koenig's discriminatory animus concerning those that are not born-again Christians, Vitug offers the deposition testimony of Jerry Birk. Birk testified that he was demoted for budgetary reasons and that he was put on probation by George Fung and Les Koenig when his productivity fell short of established goals. He further testified that several employees in Multistate's New York office, all of them Jewish, left their jobs or were disciplined supposedly because they failed to get along with George Fung. We are at a complete loss to understand how this testimony has any bearing at all on Koenig's treatment of members of differing religions. 33 Vitug's claim of disparate treatment also fails because he cannot demonstrate that Multistate's decision not to promote him was the result of his religion or national origin. With respect to word-of-mouth notification of positions, Vitug cannot complain of unfavorable treatment because he himself was notified of, and interviewed for, the field audit supervisor position. 34 Neither does the panel's decision to hire Jennings, a white Protestant, demonstrate that Vitug was rejected on the basis of his religion or ethnicity. The simple failure to hire a minority applicant does not, without more, constitute discrimination. Vitug points to Jennings's relationship with Koenig and the fact that both are white and members of the same church as evidence that he was rejected because he was Catholic and not white. However, if the only reason for Jennings' hire was his affiliation with--and racial and religious similarity to--Koenig, Vitug cannot explain why all three interviewers considered Jennings the most qualified applicant. In fact, the record indicates that Koenig awarded Jennings a lower numerical score than did the other two interviewers. Despite this, even if Jennings had not interviewed for the position at all, Vitug would still have been unanimously ranked fifth of five applicants by three interviewers who the same week selected George Fung, an Asian/Pacific Islander, for a similar position in Multistate's New York office. Vitug is left with only his naked assertion that he was the most qualified applicant, and therefore the panel's failure to hire him could have been due to nothing but discrimination. This court, however, cannot sit in review of an employer's appraisal of applicants' qualifications unless the plaintiff puts forth some tangible evidence to show that the employer's decisions were motivated by improper factors--a showing that Vitug has not made. 35 Thus, Vitug has offered no evidence whatsoever supporting his contention that Multistate's failure to select him for the field audit supervisor position violated Title VII, either under a disparate treatment or a disparate impact theory of discrimination. Accordingly, the district court's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Vitug's failure to promote claim was appropriate.