Opinion ID: 781366
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disparate Treatment Claims: National Origin and Religion

Text: 15
16 Since the district court issued its decision in this case, the Supreme Court has overruled the continuing violation theory of Title VII liability as it was applied by the district court following prior Ninth Circuit authority. See Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002), overruling Morgan v. Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp., 232 F.3d 1008 (9th Cir.2000). In reviewing whether the district court properly granted summary judgment against Raad's claims based on the District's refusal to hire her for a full-time position in 1991 and 1992, we are bound to apply current Supreme Court law. 17 In Morgan, the Court drew a distinction between harassment-based and non-harassment-based claims under Title VII: plaintiffs may not establish employer liability for events occurring prior to the statutory limitations period 5 in non-harassment based claims, even if events occurring outside of the limitations period form part of a pattern extending to events that are not time-barred. Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2072 (stating that discrete discriminatory acts are not actionable if time barred, even when they are related to acts alleged in timely filed charges); see also id. at 2071 (We have repeatedly interpreted the term `practice' to apply to a discrete act or single `occurrence,' even when it has a connection to other acts.). In other words, a discriminatory practice, although it may extend over time and through a series of related acts, remains divisible into a set of discrete acts, legal action on the basis of which must be brought within the statutory limitations period. 18 Here, Raad filed her EEO charge with the ASCHR on September 16, 1993. Because she filed her charge with the state agency, the 300-day limitations period governs her claim. Therefore, the District may be held liable only for discriminatory acts perpetrated within 300 days of September 16, 1993, counting backward from that date. As a result, Raad's claims based on the District's denial of her full-time application in August 1993 for the science position at Lathrop, as well as her claims based on the report of a bomb threat and ensuing disciplinary action, are not time-barred. The District may be held liable for damages caused by these acts, assuming that Raad is able to prove her case. 19 The failure-to-hire claims arising out of Raad's applications in 1991 and 1992 are time-barred; however, their supporting factual allegations may remain relevant to Raad's live claims. See Morgan, 122 S.Ct. at 2072; United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553, 558, 97 S.Ct. 1885, 52 L.Ed.2d 571 (1977). Accordingly, while these claims are not independently actionable, evidence about the District's refusal to hire Raad for a full-time teaching position in 1991 and 1992 is relevant and admissible insofar as it bears on her claim that she was discriminatorily refused a full-time position in August 1993.
20 In granting summary judgment to the District on Raad's claims of unlawful hiring discrimination on the basis of national origin and religion, the district court reasoned that Raad had failed to come forward with any direct evidence of discriminatory animus nor has she come forward with specific and substantial circumstantial evidence that establishes that defendant's articulated reason for not hiring her was false or that the real reason was discrimination. Raad v. Fairbanks N. Star Borough Sch. Dist., No. F97-0068-CV, slip op. at 43 (D.Alaska July 17, 2000). In so holding, the district court erroneously drew inferences in favor of the defendant's position that its decisions to deny Raad full-time employment were based solely on her qualifications. For example, the court observed: 21 It is the court's experience with employment cases where discrimination has been found that the defendants invariably give away their motives and intent by disparaging remarks in speech or writing or by contrived reasons for the employer's conduct. They are dismissive or disparaging of the prospective employee's national origin, religion, or whatever the employer's special bias happens to be. Not so here .... There is no evidence of the usual snide, sarcastic, or demeaning comments. 22 Raad, slip op. at 26 n. 20. However, it is well-settled law in this Circuit, as elsewhere, that [a] prima facie case of unlawful employment discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics may be established through indirect evidence under the familiar McDonnell Douglas four-part test. Lam v. Univ. of Haw., 40 F.3d 1551, 1559 (9th Cir.1994). 6 23 As to its assessment of Raad's proffered circumstantial evidence, the district court found that Raad had failed to meet the requirement that such evidence be specific and substantial in order to create a triable issue of fact. Raad, slip op. at 27(citing Godwin v. Hunt Wesson, Inc., 150 F.3d 1217, 1222 (9th Cir.1998)). The District conceded at summary judgment that Raad had met her initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination on the basis of national origin and religion. With this concession, the burden of production shifted to the District to articulate a nondiscriminatory reason for each adverse employment action. Chuang v. Univ. of Cal. Davis, 225 F.3d 1115, 1126(9th Cir.2000); accord St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 506-07, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993). `[T]he defendant must clearly set forth, through the introduction of admissible evidence,' reasons for its actions which, if believed by the trier of fact, would support a finding that unlawful discrimination was not the cause of the employment action. St. Mary's Honor Ctr., 509 U.S. at 507, 113 S.Ct. 2742(quoting Texas Dep't of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 254-55, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981)) (alteration and emphasis in the original). 24 To the charge of hiring discrimination with regard to the Lathrop full-time position in August 1993, the District responds that Raad was legitimately denied that position on the basis of her qualifications, including her language and communications skills, in addition to her temperament. At this stage, the burden-shifting scheme of McDonnell Douglas requires that Raad raise a genuine factual question whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to her, the District's proffered reasons are pretextual. See Chuang, 225 F.3d at 1126. This shift does not necessarily place a new burden of production on Raad. In Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 147, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000), the Court held that the factfinder may infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination without additional proof once the plaintiff has made out her prima facie case if the factfinder rejects the employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reasons as unbelievable. Accord Chuang, 225 F.3d at 1127([A] disparate treatment plaintiff can survive summary judgment without producing any evidence of discrimination beyond that constituting his prima facie case, if that evidence raises a genuine issue of material fact regarding the truth of the employer's proffered reasons.). 25 Our inquiry is twofold: The plaintiff can prove pretext (1) indirectly, by showing that the employer's proffered explanation is `unworthy of credence' because it is internally inconsistent or otherwise not believable, or (2) directly, by showing that unlawful discrimination more likely motivated the employer. Id. (citing Godwin, 150 F.3d at 1220-22). All of the evidence — whether direct or indirect — is to be considered cumulatively. Id. 26 Here, the district court, like the Fifth Circuit in Reeves, misapplied the standard of review, failed to draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Raad, the nonmoving party, and impermissibly substituted its judgment concerning the weight of the evidence for the jury's. For example, the district court stated that [t]he fact that both Kerr-Carpenter and Layral mentioned plaintiff's accent is not evidence of impermissible bias, particularly in light of the other favorable comments that both individuals made about plaintiff. At the summary judgment stage, however, when one draws all permissible inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, this is precisely the wrong approach. 27 Raad's claim of hiring discrimination in August 1993 stands primarily upon the following evidence: that she was substantially more qualified than the applicant who received the position, Rise Roy; that she had initially been told that the position would be a transfer (as a result of her temporary full-time position in 1992-93) for which she would not have to interview or compete; and that EEO officer Moore later informed her that she had not received the job because of her accent. In this Circuit, we have held that a finding that a Title VII plaintiff's qualifications were clearly superior to the qualifications of the applicant selected is a proper basis for a finding of discrimination. Odima v. Westin Tucson Hotel, 53 F.3d 1484, 1492 (9th Cir.1995). In Odima, we held that the plaintiff's superior qualifications standing alone were enough to prove pretext and, on that basis, we affirmed the district court's entry of judgment for the plaintiff following a bench trial. Id. Unlike the Tenth Circuit, see Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc., 186 F.3d 1301, 1319 (10th Cir.1999), we have never followed the Fifth Circuit in holding that the disparity in candidates' qualifications must be so apparent as to jump off the page and slap us in the face to support a finding of pretext. Raad, slip op. at 43 (citing Odom v. Frank, 3 F.3d 839, 847 (5th Cir.1993)). This is especially true at the summary judgment stage, when we are compelled by the standard of review to infer from the pronounced difference between Raad's and Roy's qualifications that Raad has demonstrated a genuine factual dispute as to whether the District's proffered reasons were pretextual. 28 When considering the evidence as a whole, there are numerous other bases upon which a trier of fact could infer pretext. For example, Moore informed Raad that she had been denied the Lathrop position due to her accent. On this record, his statement should be viewed against the backdrop of Kerr-Carpenter's 1992 statements regarding Raad's accent, and Layral's statement regarding Raad's accent in his preliminary interview evaluation, which remained in her file with the District. 29 The close relationship between language and national origin led the EEOC to classify discrimination based on linguistic characteristics as unlawful under Title VII. See 29 C.F.R. § 1606.1 (2003); cf. id. § 1606.7(a)(noting, in the context of speak-English-only rules, that [t]he primary language of an individual is often an essential national origin characteristic). Accent and national origin are obviously inextricably intertwined in many cases. Fragante v. City & County of Honolulu, 888 F.2d 591, 596 (9th Cir.1989). To be sure, we have held that adverse employment decisions may be predicated upon an individual's accent, but only if it interferes with the individual's job performance. Id. at 596-97; see also Carino v. Univ. of Okla. Bd. of Regents, 750 F.2d 815, 819 (10th Cir. 1984) (A foreign accent that does not interfere with a Title VII claimant's ability to perform duties of the position he has been denied is not a legitimate justification for adverse employment decisions.). Here, the summary judgment record contains evidence that Raad's accent did not impair her performance as a teacher (and therefore was not job-related), including recommendations written by her graduate school instructors, requests for her as a substitute by other teachers employed by the District, and the District's own continued employment of her as a substitute. Based on this evidence, it would be reasonable for a finder of fact to infer that the District used her accent as a pretext to deny her a full-time position because of her national origin. 30 In addition to the accent and qualifications evidence, under Morgan we also look to the District's past treatment of Raad's candidacy for full-time positions as background evidence of intent to discriminate. Specifically, Raad alleges that the District undervalued her G.P.A. and writing sample in 1991 in order to exclude her from the hiring pool for full-time positions and delayed her admission into the hiring pool in 1992 in order to dispense the majority of positions prior to her becoming eligible. Raad also alleges that Kerr-Carpenter manufactured false flow charts to indicate that she had conducted competitive interviews for positions that she had given to other applicants without conducting such interviews in the 1992-93 school year. The circumstances surrounding each of these questions involve factual disputes that should not have been resolved at summary judgment by the district court's weighing of the evidence. 31
32 The district court also granted summary judgment to the District on Raad's claim that, due to her alleged bomb threat, she was discriminatorily subjected to a disciplinary suspension in her eligibility to be hired either as a substitute or as a full-time teacher. The district court inappropriately concluded, again weighing the evidence, that defendant's personnel legitimately believed that plaintiff had threatened to blow up the building. 33 In applying the McDonnell Douglas test to the facts of this claim, Raad may establish a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that (1) she is a member of a protected class, (2) she was adequately performing her job (prior to the alleged bomb threat), and (3) she suffered an adverse employment action or was treated differently from others who were similarly situated. See 411 U.S. at 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817; see also Kortan v. Cal. Youth Auth., 217 F.3d 1104, 1113 (9th Cir. 2000). The requisite degree of proof necessary to establish a prima facie case for Title VII ... claims on summary judgment is minimal and does not even need to rise to the level of a preponderance of the evidence. Wallis v. J.R. Simplot Co., 26 F.3d 885, 889 (9th Cir.1994). The plaintiff need only offer evidence which gives rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 34 Raad made out a prima facie case of discrimination with respect to the District's reaction to the alleged bomb threat. She showed that: (1) she is a member of a protected group, (2) she was performing her job adequately before the alleged bomb threat, and (3) she suffered an adverse employment action when the District issued its disciplinary suspension. Therefore, the burden of production shifted to the District to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its actions. Chuang, 225 F.3d at 1126. 35 The District asserts that it disciplined Raad because she made a bomb threat, and claims that it would have sanctioned similarly any other employee who made such a threat. Raad maintains that she did not make a bomb threat, but that fact is irrelevant at the second step of the McDonnell Douglas analysis, which focuses on the employer. To satisfy its burden, the District need only produce admissible evidence which would allow the trier of fact rationally to conclude that the employment decision had not been motivated by discriminatory animus. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 257, 101 S.Ct. 1089. Here, the District presented sufficient evidence of a bomb threat to shift the burden back to Raad to show that the District's proffered reason is pretextual. Chuang, 225 F.3d at 1126. 36 Raad may prove pretext either directly by persuading the court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly by showing that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256, 101 S.Ct. 1089. As discussed above, Raad presented evidence tending to show that the District's bomb-threat explanation is unworthy of credence. She offered proof that she did not threaten to blow up the building but, instead, stated only that she was very angry and did not want to blow up. Further, Raad presented evidence that the staff members may have misunderstood what she said because of their preconceptions regarding her religion and national origin. 37 Although the District presented evidence in support of its claim that Raad did, in fact, make a bomb threat, Raad presented evidence from which a rational jury could conclude that she made no bomb threat at all and that the District's contrary interpretation of the event was influenced by stereotypes about her religion or nationality. Thus, there is a genuine issue of fact as to whether the District's stated reason for disciplining Raad was pretextual, and the district court erred in granting summary judgment.