Opinion ID: 770334
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Post-Complaint Hires

Text: 45 Lastly, with respect to Dr. Chuang's claim for denial of an FTE position, the district court held that he failed to show differential treatment regarding the denial of an FTE position. Specifically, according to the district judge, Dr. Chuang did not refute Davis's evidence that of the seven FTEs awarded in the Basic Sciences division of the School of Medicine since 1996, three have gone to Asian professors. Davis cites this fact in its brief, but wisely refrains from relying on it as a basis for affirming the district court's decision. 46 As an initial matter, the record does not reveal the national origin of these new hires. An employer's favorable treatment of Asian employees does not answer a claim of discrimination based on national origin. See Lam v. University of Hawai'i, 40 F.3d 1551, 1561 n.16 (9th Cir. 1994) ([I]t is significant that Lam and the Asian male candidate were of different national origins -Lam being Vietnamese-French, the male candidate, Chinese. Lam alleged not only race discrimination but also national origin discrimination, thereby raising this distinction as relevant under Title VII.). 47 More important, the three Asian professors were hired, according to the Chuangs, long after the Chuangs filed their complaints with the EEOC and their lawsuit in federal court. If accurate, this timing would eliminate any probative value the evidence might otherwise have. Given the obvious incentive in such circumstances for an employer to take corrective action in an attempt to shield itself from liability, it is clear that nondiscriminatory employer actions occurring subsequent to the filing of a discrimination complaint will rarely even be relevant as circumstantial evidence in favor of the employer. Lam, 40 F.3d at 1561 n.17 (citing Gonzales v. Police Dep't, City of San Jose, 901 F.2d 758, 761-62 (9th Cir.1990)). In Gonzalez this court reviewed rulings calling into doubt the relevance of an employer's post-complaint promotion of minority employees in cases seeking prospective relief against discriminatory employment practices. 901 F.2d at 762. It then found the irrelevance of such evidence even more apparent in disparate treatment cases like this one addressing whether discrimination occurred prior to the commencement of a Title VII action. Id. Curative measures simply do not tend to prove that a prior violation did not occur. Id. 48 Davis's subsequent hiring practices are therefore irrelevant to the question whether Dr. Chuang was subjected to discrimination from 1982 to 1997. On remand, the district court should exclude at trial evidence of Davis's postcomplaint hiring of Asian-American professors, unless the university can prove that it made its hiring decisions before it became aware that the Chuangs intended to pursue their complaints.