Court Opinion

ID: 9491625
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:18:55.396005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:51.012882
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I would reverse the district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of law on Ronald Brown’s Title VII race discrimination claim.* Brown has adduced significant evidence that he was the victim of a systematic racial purge carried out by Jacqueline McLean shortly after McLean was elected Comptroller of the City of Baltimore in November 1991. At the very least, Brown deserves a trial.
On November 26, 1991, McLean, an African-American female, called Rudolph Koffler in the Bureau of Management Information Services and asked him for data on the name, address, race, and sex of each employee in the Department of the Comptroller. Based on this data, and on a visual inspection of the Department, McLean concluded that the office’s “predominantly white male” status was unacceptable. She then pronounced that she did not want any pictures of white men on the walls of the Comptroller’s office and ordered them removed. She later expressed doubts about the ability of a white male manager to serve and represent her or the people of the City of Baltimore.
The purported “reorganization” of the Comptroller’s office was little more than a racial reshuffle. When McLean took office white men, including Brown, held three of the four highest civil service positions in the Department — Deputy City Auditor, Assistant Comptroller, and Administrator of Telephone Facilities. In 1992 McLean submitted a budget to the Board of Estimates that provided no funding for the three positions held by the white men. The budget created the seemingly parallel positions of Audit Manager, Administrative Officer III, and Director of Communication Services (DCS). On May 26, 1992, McLean informed Brown and the two other white male managers that them positions had been abolished pursuant to the “reorganization.” The one position held by an African-American female, that of the Director of the Municipal Post Office, was left unchanged and fully funded. McLean insisted that she simply was following her transition team’s suggestions. The transition team’s report, however, recommended retaining Brown.
There is no evidence that Brown performed unsatisfactorily. On the contrary, the evidence shows that other governmental units around the state of Maryland adopted Brown’s innovations. McLean herself complimented Brown on several of his cost-saving suggestions, telling him to implement them immediately. And she further informed him that she was satisfied with his work. A short time later, she recommended eliminating his position.
As a civil servant, Brown had a right to be placed automatically on the re-employment list for the job that most closely approximated his abolished position. Charter of Baltimore City art. VII, § 121. An employee on that list would have priority over all other applicants. However, Brown was not listed for the DCS job. Instead the Civil Service Commission placed Brown, who has an M.B.A. and twenty years of management experience, on the re-employment list for the position of Telephone Supervisor — in effect the position of a switchboard operator. Not only did the position require nothing more *907than a high school equivalency certificate, it had no vacancy.
McLean interviewed Rochelle Young, an African-American male, to fill the DCS position. Young possessed no municipal experience and no experience dealing with telephone company customers. What telephone experience he had was limited largely to equipment upkeep and development. McLean hired him anyway.
Brown’s story was not aberrational. The City similarly failed to rehire the other employees whose jobs it abolished. The former Assistant Comptroller was considered but not hired for the parallel position of Administrative Officer III. The City ultimately listed him for an unavailable mid-level auditor position. McLean eventually filled the Administrative Officer III job with an African-American female. She justified her choice by insisting that no Caucasian could serve as her assistant. In addition, the former Deputy City Auditor was flatly told he could not apply for the parallel job of Audit Manager. Finally, McLean directed Allan Reynolds, the City Auditor, to fill one of the newly created Audit Manager positions with George Carter, an African-American, in the face of Reynolds’ protests that Carter was less qualified than other non-minority candidates. McLean informed Reynolds that “her policy was to appoint black minority candidates to the maximum extent possible.” According to Brown, by the time McLean left office, no Caucasians and only one male, Young, were left on the payroll of the executive office of the Comptroller.
In affirming the district court, the majority relies on Brown’s failure to apply formally for the DCS position. Brown’s failure to apply, however, poses no bar to his Title YII claim. First, no mechanism exists by which Brown could place himself on a re-employment list. See Baltimore Civil Service Rule 41(b) (leaving the decision to the Commission). Indeed, as noted, the City’s charter automatically provided him with a right to be considered for the DCS job, rather than for a job as a switchboard operator. Consequently, a jury could well have found that Brown did all he had to do to apply for the DCS position.
Second, Brown presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that applying was futile. He proffered a claim that he “would have applied [for the DCS job] but for accurate knowledge of [the City’s] discrimination and that he would have been diseriminatorily rejected had he actually applied.” Pinchback v. Armistead Homes Corp., 907 F.2d 1447, 1451 (4th Cir.1990). Brown learned shortly before he received his re-employment list assignment that McLean had provisionally hired an African-American for the DCS job. That person moved into Brown’s old office and assumed Brown’s old duties. Similarly, Brown witnessed the elimination of civil service positions held by whites and “was convinced that ... because [he] was white” McLean would not hire him. In fact, McLean refused to re-hire one of the other white managers for the new Administrative Officer III position simply because he was white. Moreover, she told the third displaced manager not even to apply for the position most closely approximating his old job. Given such a pattern, Brown need not have subjected himself “to the humiliation of explicit and certain rejection.” United States v. Gregory, 871 F.2d 1239, 1242 (4th Cir.1989).
The City asserts that McLean’s behavior and the Commission’s failure to list Brown properly were unconnected. Consequently, it maintains, McLean’s motivation is irrelevant to the Commission’s incorrect listing of Brown. A court ought not indulge this bureaucratic shell game. If the Commission had listed Brown properly, he would have assumed the DCS position — a result that would have placed him back in close proximity to McLean. That the Commission would be unaware of McLean’s agenda, especially in the face of her racially charged public pronouncements, is highly unlikely. When a prominent elected official dismisses an employee under circumstances such as these, it is far-fetched to assume that the Commission would defy her wishes by simply rehiring him.
In effect, the City is asking this court to review Brown’s claim while covering one eye and squinting with the other. In ceding to McLean’s wishes, the Commission failed even *908to follow its own procedures. For instance, the Commission did not perform a field audit on McLean’s suggested reorganization. A field audit would have involved interviewing Brown; the Commission failed even to contact him. Similarly, the Commission followed orders to keep the reorganization a secret from Reynolds despite the fact that city protocol required that he be notified.
The rule of law should not turn on which race is burdened or benefitted by this sort of conduct. See Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 227, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 132 L.Ed.2d 158 (1995). Here, McLean’s decision allegedly worked to the advantage of African-Americans. In other offices, under other managers, however, racial decisions will just as wrongly work to their detriment. According to McLean, “I needed someone to represent me. I am black. I don’t think [a white male manager] would even be able this day to be able to represent me in front of my community....” Apparently, McLean thought one-race policies were just good polities. Unfortunately, “good politics” has often been used in our sad past to sow racial division. “[A] free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality should tolerate no retreat from the principle that government may treat people differently because of their race only for the most compelling reasons.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). No such reason exists in this case.
Racial pogroms in the workforce have no place in our country. Brown should be allowed to say that he had perfoi'med capably as Administrator of Telephone Facilities for many years, that he was the most qualified person for the DCS position, and that he was not rehired for that position for no reason other than his race. And a jury should be allowed to conclude that such treatment of him violates the core mandate of Title VII.

 In all other respects, I would affirm the district court.