Court Opinion

ID: 9490826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:55:44.883971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:20.378244
License: Public Domain

Judge Calabresi dissents, in a separate opinion.
KEARSE, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff Irwin Stern appeals from a final judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Harold Baer, Jr., Judge, dismissing his complaint alleging that defendant Trustees of Columbia University (“Columbia” or the “University”) denied him a requested position because of his national origin, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (1994). The district court granted the University’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint on the ground that, though Stern had presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case, the court would not second-guess the nondiscriminatory reason proffered by the University for its selection of another candidate. On appeal, Stern contends that summary judgment was improper because there were genuine issues of fact to be tried. For the reasons that follow, we agree, and we therefore vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.
I. BACKGROUND
The present controversy centers on the position of Director of the Spanish Language Program (“Language Program” or “Program”) in the University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese (the “Department”). Through the Program, the Department principally provided instruction in the Spanish language to some 750 undergraduate and graduate students in approximately 45 sections of 12 elementary and intermediate courses each semester, taught by approximately 25 teaching assistants.
Stern, a white American male of Eastern European origin, was acting director of the Program in 1991-1993. In 1992, when it was decided that a full-time director should be *307appointed for the academic year beginning in 1993, Stern applied for the position. The University, which had adopted an affirmative action plan pursuant to which it sought out qualified women and minority candidates, appointed as director Augustus Puleo, an American male of Hispanic descent. Stern contends that despite his own extremely strong credentials and recommendations, he was never afforded a genuine opportunity to compete with candidates from the University’s preferred groups.
Preliminarily, we note that this appeal has arrived in this Court with the entire record sealed. We see no basis for the sealing of an entire record such as this, particularly in the context of a motion for summary judgment that was granted. See Joy v. North, 692 F.2d 880, 893 (2d Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1051, 103 S.Ct. 1498, 75 L.Ed.2d 930 (1983). In response to an inquiry at oral argument, the University sent this Court a letter specifying certain documents that it deemed confidential and wished to remain sealed. Accordingly, with the exception of the documents specified in that letter, the record is hereby unsealed. The University may move in the district court for a determination of which, if any, of the documents specified in its letter should remain sealed. That determination should be made in accordance with the test set out in United States v. Amodeo, 71 F.3d 1044 (2d Cir.1995).
Taken in the light most favorable to Stern, as the party opposing summary judgment, the record includes the following.
A. Stem’s Qualifications
Stern received his Ph.D. from the City University of New York in 1972 and was hired by Columbia in 1978 for a part-time position in the Department. In that position,' he taught Spanish and Portuguese, helped to develop the Spanish Program for medical students at the University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and ran the Department’s summer language program. For this work, Stern received high praise for both his teaching and his administrative abilities. In 1989, Stern was named director of the University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons Spanish Program.
By 1992, Stern had some 25 years’ experience in teaching college-level courses in Spanish and Portuguese language and literature. He had served on the editorial boards of several professional journals, had edited more than 40 college-level textbooks on Spanish language and literature, and had published his own Spanish and Portuguese grammar textbooks and scholarly works.
B. The University’s Affirmative Action Plan
Throughout the relevant period, it was the University’s policy that faculty was to be hired without regard to invidious factors such as race, color, religion, age, or national origin. The University had an affirmative action plan (the “Plan”), applicable to all of its schools and departments (collectively “departments”), which required that all academic appointments to full-time positions be made after “a wide search for candidates, with special efforts made to locate women and minority group eandidates[,] and ... a fair, impartial review and judgment of all applications.” (1992 Affirmative Action Plan at 7.) Once promising female and minority candidates were identified, however, all applicants were to be evaluated by the same standards. (See Affidavit of Martin Meisel, former University Vice President, dated August 21, 1995, ¶ 24 (“The Plan does not ... permit ... the use of different or lower standards in judging minority and female candidates. Instead, it urges that special efforts be taken to identify promising minority and female candidates. Once they are identified, however, they are judged by the same rigorous standards applied to white males.”).)
The Plan also recognized that “the process of faculty recruitment and development inherently involves the application of judgmental criteria, and that the responsibility for applying these criteria must rest primarily with the faculties themselves.” (1992 Affirmative Action Plan at 6.) The Plan required each department to establish its own search and evaluation procedures consistent with the University’s policies and goals. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese had established such procedures, which required its *308Executive Committee, comprising all' tenured faculty members in the Department, initially to define the position available and vote on whether to initiate a search for a full-time nontenured faculty member. Once an affirmative vote was taken, the Department’s Chair would draft an advertisement to be submitted to the University’s Vice President for Arts and Sciences for approval. All applications submitted in response to the advem tisement would then be read by the Department’s search committee, with the most promising applications being reviewed by the Executive Committee and non-Department persons such as adjunct faculty members and members of the Spanish Department at Barnard College (“Barnard”). The strongest candidates would then be invited to interview with the faculty and, on occasion, to present a talk at the University to Department faculty, graduate students, or others. The final decision as to each candidate was to be made by the Department’s Executive Committee, with input from a representative from Barnard.
C. The Directorship of the Spanish Language Program
In mid-1991, the then-Director of the Spanish Language Program, David Barnwell, resigned. Barnwell recommended that Stern be his successor; the Department’s faculty unanimously concurred. The University’s affirmative action plan permitted a department to fill a position following a limited search, or no search, in certain circumstances, such as when a position was left open due to an unforeseen occurrence. In those circumstances, the Plan required the department to seek from the University’s Provost a waiver of the Plan’s affirmative-action search requirements. In the wake of Barnwell’s .unanticipated resignation,, the Department’s Chair recommended to the Provost that Stern be appointed to replace Barnwell on an interim, part-time basis for the 1991-1992 academic year.
The Provost granted the Department emergency affirmative-action clearance for Stern’s appointment; he notified Martin Meisel, the University’s then-Vice President for Arts and Sciences, that Stern “should be informed that the appointment is interim and not considered renewable without a complete search in accordance with the University’s Affirmative Action Program.” (Letter from Provost Jonathan R. Cole to Meisel, dated May 2, 1991, at 1.) In June 1992, the Department received permission to reappoint Stern for a second year on the same basis.
On October 1, 1992, after it was decided that the Program should have a full-time director, Felix Martinez-Bonati, the Department’s Chair, wrote to Meisel, requesting authorization to announce the position, conduct the normal search, and select the best candidate. The University, however, had identified the Spanish Department as one of three departments in the Humanities that were to be “targets for selective recruiting” of minority faculty. (Recruiting Tomorrow’s Faculty: Minorities in the Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School at 2.) Further, it considered “direct intervention” by Meisel, in the form of communications to department chairpersons and participation in negotiations with prospective faculty, to be the “most effective way” of increasing the number of senior female faculty members. (Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, Annual Review and Evaluation, dated September 1990, at 6.) Therefore, instead of granting the Department’s request to advertise the director position and conduct a normal search, Meisel informed the Department that he planned to appoint Frances Boyd, a Senior Lecturer in the American Language Program who had consulted with the Department concerning its Language Program and had performed a study on the effectiveness of the Program, to the director position for a period of three years. Her qualifications for the position included an M.A. in Spanish language and literature, an Ed.D. in Adult Education Curriculum, and one year of teaching Spanish at the college level. In proposing to appoint Boyd, Meisel made no mention of the University’s normal search procedures.
The Department strongly opposed the appointment of Boyd as director (though it valued the study she had conducted) and praised Stern’s work as interim director of the Language Program:
*309The faculty and the graduate students of the Department ... think with rare unanimity that the job [Stern] has done as director of the language program since 1991 has been extraordinarily successful and indeed impossible to top. Our Department’s language program is now a model for instructors of other Departments and Dr. Stern is being consulted by some of them to help them improve their language teaching.... We think that [Stern] can be said to be a true professional of language teaching, even if he did not obtain a Ph.D. in methodology or pedagogy but in literary studies....
Several of our graduate students are taking courses of language at various other Departments of the University .... [and have] told me that the courses that they are taking at those Departments are far inferior in materials and methodology to the ones they themselves teach. The language program in Spanish and Portuguese has never been done better....
(Letter from Martinez-Bonati to Meisel and Dean Roger Bagnall, dated October 25,1992, at 3-4.) The Department recognized that existing procedures prevented the appointment of Stern on a full-time basis without a search, and it stated that “[t]he faculty thinks that, if Stern cannot be directly reappointed, a formal search has to be done to fill the position.” (Letter from Martinez-Bonati to Meisel, dated October 25, 1992, at 1.)
Meisel retreated from his attempt to appoint Boyd summarily to the director position and agreed that, in conformity with the University’s affirmative action policies, a search should be conducted. Normally, the search for candidates for a position in a single University department, such as the director position at issue here, would be conducted by a search committee comprising members of that department.- In a departure from the University’s past practices, however, Meisel appointed an interdepartmental search committee (the “search committee”). The interdepartmental committee was created in the belief that the Spanish Department would have appointed Stern if “left to its own devices.” (Draft letter from Search Committee to Meisel, dated April 27, 1993, at 1.) The five-member committee Meisel appointed was headed by Department Professor Patricia Grieve and included only one other member from the Department. The other three members were in other language departments of the University (respectively, Russian, Italian, and East Asian Language); they did not speak, read, write, or understand Spanish.
After the completion of its initial screening process, the search committee determined that its first choice was Kenya Dworkin y Mendez, a Hispanic female, but she accepted a position elsewhere before an interview could be arranged. The committee subsequently interviewed three applicants: a white American woman, Puleo, and Stern. Stern’s candidacy was supported by the Department’s Chair, who wrote a letter of recommendation again praising Stern for his work as interim director of the Program:
Stern has directed the program with insuperable dedication, attention to every detail, and prompt response to all the usual emergencies generated by illness of instructors and the like. Moreover, he has given intense and sustained attention to the methodological improvement of the program, both in its overall conception and in its execution by each of the [teaching assistants] and Preceptors. He has inspired a strict sense of duty and discipline in our graduate students and has been uncompromising in observing these standards. It is a testimony to the quality of his work that the strict standards he demands of the graduate students (enforced with serious measures when needed) have resulted in his great popularity among them. The students respect and like him and emphatically approve of the way he conducts the program.
In the last one and a half years a growing consensus has emerged in the Department regarding Stern’s work. As I expressed last semester to Vice President Martin Meisel in a letter, we think that the language program of the Department has never been better conducted than under Stern’s direction, and that it is impossible to top his performance.
*310(Letter from Martinez-Bonati to Professor Patricia Grieve, Chair of Search Committee for Language Coordinator, dated January 23, 1993, at 1.)
In addition to interviewing the three final candidates, the search committee required each of them to teach a class (“model class”), observed by members of the committee. After observing the model classes, the search committee hired Puleo. The search committee reported that Puleo had demonstrated excellence in teaching and that Stern’s teaching was weak. The offer to Puleo was extended approximately 1& weeks after his interview; the University’s ombuds officer, to whom Stern complained about the denial of his own application, viewed the search committee’s final decision to make the offer to Puleo as having been made with “unusual rapidity.”
Stern’s complaint to the ombuds officer was referred to the University’s Associate Provost, who in turn referred the complaint to Meisel. Meisel found no merit in Stern’s suggestion that the decision had been made on the basis of national origin.
D. The Present Action
Stern commenced the present action against the University alleging, inter alia, that in its overarching desire to appoint women and minorities to its faculty, the University had deviated from its affirmative action plan and had refused, because of his national origin, to give him fair consideration for the director position. The University moved for summary judgment, relying principally on affidavits from Grieve and Meisel and documentation concerning the affirmative action policies. The University stated that it hired Puleo based on legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons — principally on Pu-leo’s superior administrative and teaching skills — and it argued that Stern had presented no admissible evidence to show that these reasons were a pretext for discrimination.
In' opposition to summary judgment, Stern submitted his own affidavit, various documents, and deposition testimony from a number of individuals involved in the search process, including the members of the search committee. He argued that a discriminatory basis for the University’s decision could be inferred from the facts, inter alia, that his qualifications for the position were superior to those of Puleo; that the University deviated from its own prescribed practices in seeking to fill the director position; and that University officials had expressly indicated that Stern would not be considered seriously for the position. He pointed out that of the three candidates whom the search committee interviewed, Stern was the only candidate who had received a doctorate; that neither of the others had written as extensively as Stern or had as much college-level teaching experience; and that Stern had excelled in actually running the Program during his interim appointment, receiving glowing commendation for his performance in that capacity. He also pointed out that in seeking to fill the position, the University had more than once deviated from its normal procedures. The deviations included Meisel’s early attempt to appoint Boyd as director without following the University’s normal affirmative action procedures — permitting a factfinder to disbelieve the University’s claim that in selecting Puleo it had merely adhered to those procedures; the unprecedented appointment of an interdepartmental search committee for a single-department position; and the disregard of the affirmative action plan’s recognition that responsibility for applying judgmental criteria must rest primarily with the faculty of the department involved. In this case, Stern pointed out, though the Department had emphasized the need to hire a director who could teach courses in Portuguese, the search committee entirely ignored that need; of the three candidates interviewed, only Stern had proficiency in Portuguese.
Stern characterized as a “sham” the search committee’s evaluation of his teaching skills solely on the basis of his model class. On that morning, a severe snowstorm cut student attendance by more than half and substantially delayed the arrival of those who did attend, forcing Stern to cover 50 minutes’ worth of material in 30-35 minutes. He further argued that the search committee itself could not have been formed with a view *311to finding the best qualified candidate, for the University had placed on the committee a majority of members who did not speak, write, read, or understand Spanish. Though the committee purported to have relied heavily on the candidates’ respective skills in conducting the model classes, all three classes were taught entirely in Spanish and consisted of lessons on Spanish vocabulary and language structure. The three non-Spanish-speaking members of the committee acknowledged in their depositions that they could not determine in the model classes whether the candidates gave correct instructions or whether the students gave correct answers.
In his affidavit, Stern stated that search committee member Professor Maria Carrion had told him the Department needed more Hispanic members. In addition, Stern submitted the typewritten minutes of a meeting between Department teaching assistants and Meisel on October 29,1992, recording Meisel as indicating, even before he had appointed a search committee, that it was “highly unlikely that Stern [would] return as language director.” Finally, Stern submitted the deposition testimony of James Crapotta, a then-Senior Lecturer in Spanish at Barnard, who, in considering whether to apply for the director position had called Grieve as Chair of the search committee in an effort to determine whether he would be trenching on the toes of Stern, whom he regarded as a colleague. Crapotta testified that Grieve told him that Stern was “not going to be considered seriously for this job.”
In an Opinion and Order dated November 3, 1995, reported at 903 F.Supp. 601, the district court granted summary judgment dismissing the complaint. The court found initially that Stern “can establish his prima facie case.” 903 F.Supp. at 604. It found that Stern “belongs to a protected class”; that the satisfactory nature of his performance as acting director of the Program was not disputed; that he was denied the position of permanent director; and that “if viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, it is not impossible that one could infer from the circumstances that the plaintiff was discriminated against.” Id.
The court granted summary judgment in favor of the University, however, because it found that the University had come forward with “documentary evidence to rebut plaintiffs claims of unequal treatment and argue[d] that it has the right as an employer to hire the candidate it feels is best qualified for the position,” id., and that a court should not second-guess such business decisions. The court ruled that though Stern argued that the University’s proffer should be viewed as pretextual in light of, inter alia, his qualifications, the University’s affirmative action policy, and the irregularities in the procedures followed, none of Stern’s arguments established that the University’s proffer was pretextual. For example, the court stated that the fact that the University had attempted to appoint a woman without following its normal search procedures “would seem[ to] cut[ ] against” an inference of pretext because the Department had fended off the University’s attempt. Id. at 605. The court rejected Stern’s contention that the search committee’s evaluation of his model class was a sham, stating that “the[ ] irregularities were probably the result of a snowstorm on the day of plaintiffs interview,” and “hardly established the pretextual motives of the decision.” Id. The court rejected Stern’s contention that the appointment of a search committee whose majority did not have competence in Spanish, to judge the skills of candidates teaching Spanish, was a significant deviation from the University’s normal procedures from which pretext could be inferred. • The court found this departure insignificant, stating that “[t]he committee consisted of the same five members for all three candidates, and as stated above, the court will not second guess an entity’s business decisions.” Id.
Judgment was entered dismissing the complaint, and this appeal followed. For the reasons that follow, we vacate the judgment.
II. DISCUSSION
In order to establish a prima facie ease of discrimination in violation of Title VII, a plaintiff who asserts that he has been denied a position must show (1) that he belongs to a protected class, (2) that he was qualified for *312the position, (3) that he was denied the position, and (4) that the denial occurred in circumstances giving rise to an inference of discrimination on the basis of his membership in that class. See generally Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 & n. 6, 101 S.Ct. 1089, 1094 & n. 6, 67 L.Ed.2d 207 (1981) (“Burdine ”); Chambers v. TRM Copy Centers Corp., 43 F.3d at 37; Rosen v. Thornburgh, 928 F.2d 528, 532 (2d Cir.1991). Once the plaintiff has presented a prima facie case of discrimination, the defendant-has the burden of producing, “ ‘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 Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 2747, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993) (“Hicks ”) (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 255, 101 S.Ct. at 1094) (emphasis in Hicks)).
In order to defeat summary judgment after such a showing by the defendant, the plaintiffs admissible evidence must show circumstances that would be sufficient to permit a rational finder of fact to infer that the defendant’s employment decision was more likely than not based in whole or in part on discrimination. See, e.g., Fisher v. Vassar College, 114 F.3d 1332, 1339 (2d Cir.) (en banc), petition for cert. filed, 66 U.S.L.W. 3178 (U.S. Sept. 2, 1997) (No. 97-404); Cronin v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 46 F.3d 196, 204 (2d Cir.1995); Chambers v. TRM Copy Centers Corp., 43 F.3d 29, 38 (2d Cir.1994). If the plaintiffs evidence was barely sufficient to make out a prima facie case, it may not be sufficient to establish discrimination after the defendant has proffered a neutral rationale. See Fisher v. Vassar College, 114 F.3d at 1337, 1342, 1346.
When a court comes to consider, either upon defendant’s motion for summary judgment, or after a plaintiffs verdict, whether the evidence can support a verdict of discrimination,-the judge must analyze the evidence, along with the inferences that may be reasonably drawn from it, and decide if it raises a jury question as to whether the plaintiff was the victim of discrimination. If so, summary judgment must be denied and/or a jury verdict for plaintiff must be sustained. If not, the defendant is entitled to summary judgment or to the overturning of a plaintiffs verdict as clearly erroneous.
Id. at 1347.
It is of course well established that a motion for summary judgment may not be granted unless the court determines that there is no genuine issue of material fact to be tried and that the facts as to which there is no such issue warrant judgment for the moving party as a matter of law. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c). In assessing the record to determine whether there is such an issue, the court is required to resolve all ambiguities and draw all permissible factual inferences in favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought. See, e.g., Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Ramseur v. Chase Manhattan Bank, 865 F.2d 460, 465 (2d Cir.1989).
In the present case, the district court properly found, and the University does not contest, that Stern had presented sufficient evidence to make out a prima facie case of discrimination on the basis of national origin. Since the University satisfied its burden of producing admissible evidence of a nondiscriminatory reason for its action, the proper question on the motion for summary judgment was whether Stern presented evidence from which a jury could permissibly infer that, in denying Stern the directorship, the University had discriminated on the basis of national origin. That question should have been answered in the affirmative. The record included evidence from which the jury could infer (1) that Stern had superior qualifications, experience, and recommendations, and that notwithstanding the affirmative action plan’s provision that after promising women and minority candidates are located all candidates are to be judged by the same standards, the key University officials, Vice President Meisel and Chairperson Grieve, did not apply the same standards here, expressly stating that Stern’s candidacy would not be considered seriously; (2) that the reason was that the University desired to *313hire a woman or Hispanic; (3) that that desire was inferable from, inter alia, (a) the University’s initial attempt to give the position summarily to a woman without following any of its usual procedures, (b) the fact that, other than Stern, the only candidates seriously considered or interviewed for the position were either female or Hispanic, or both, and (c) the fact that the University’s ultimate offer to Puleo, a Hispanic, was made with what the University’s ombuds officer characterized as “unusual rapidity”; (4) that the University’s claim that it simply appointed the best candidate it could find could be viewed as pretextual in light of its selection of that candidate through its unprecedented appointment of an interdepartmental seareh committee a majority of whose members, because of their inability to speak, read, write, or understand Spanish, were not .competent to assess crucial skills of candidates for the director position; (5) that this atypical committee was created because of the belief that Stern would likely win the position if normal procedures were followed; and (6) that the committee claimed to have made its selection based principally on the relative teaching skills of Stern and Puleo as' exhibited in classes conducted entirely in Spanish, which a majority of the committee eoneededly could not understand.
This evidence, along with the inferences that may be reasonably drawn from it, can hardly be deemed a weak or de minimis showing. It would be ample to support findings (a) that the University’s rationale that it simply hired the best qualified candidate was pretextual, and (b) that the reason for the University’s refusal to give serious consideration to Stern’s candidacy was that he was not of Hispanic origin. We note that the various statements of University officials and search committee members relied on by Stern are not hearsay. For example, Stern’s assertion that one search committee member told him that the Department needed more Hispanic members is not hearsay because that statement would not be offered for its truth, see Fed.R.Evid. 801(c), but rather as a statement from which, regardless of its truth, the University’s emphasis on national origin in filling the position could be inferred. Further, though the early statements of Meisel and Grieve revealing that Stern’s candidacy would not be considered seriously would be offered for their truth, they are not hearsay because they were statements by the University’s agents as to matters within the scope of their duties. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(D). Given the strength of Stern’s evidence permitting an inference of discrimination on the basis of national origin, the claim that the University discriminated against Stern in violation of Title VII could not properly be dismissed as a matter of law.
We disagree with múeh of the dissenting opinion for three principal reasons. First, in arguing that a court is “required to focus” solely on “the reasons given by the defendant for not hiring Stern,” dissenting opinion post at 316, the dissent credits the University’s explanation of the reason for its employment decision as a matter of law. While we do not second-guess an employer’s hiring standards, the reasons for its employment decision, including its alleged reliance on such standards, are subject to scrutiny under Titlé VII, and “[departures from procedural regularity,” for example, “can raise a question as to the good faith of the process where the departure may reasonably affect the decision.” Zahorik v. Cornell University, 729 F.2d 85, 93 (2d Cir.1984). Where the plaintiff has presented evidence sufficient to support an inference of impermissiblé discrimination and an inference that the reasons given by the defendant for its employment decision were not its real reasons, triable issues of fact are presented.
Second, the dissent draws all factual inferences adversely to Stern. Though a factfin-der after trial surely would be permitted to draw the inferences argued for in the dissent, it would not be required to do so. What the dissent characterizes in the majority opinion as “speculation and conjecture,” dissenting opinion post at 315, is merely our compliance with summary judgment jurisprudence, which requires this Court to construe the record in the light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment was granted. A factfinder of course would not be required to draw inferences favorable to the plaintiff; however, where, as here, the factfinder would be permitted to do *314so, this Court in reviewing summary judgment must do so.
Finally, the dissent considers the record solely in piecemeal fashion, proffering innocent explanations for individual strands of evidence. The jury, however, will be entitled to view the evidence as a whole in assessing whether there was impermissible discrimination and whether the University’s proffered explanation is a pretext for that discrimination. Cf., e.g., Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 242, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2048, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976) (“an invidious discriminatory purpose may often be inferred from the totality of the relevant facts”). For example, the dissent concedes that the search eqmmittee Chair’s statement to Crapotta “that Stern was ‘not going to be seriously considered for this job,’ ” is “evidence in the case suggesting that Columbia’s explanation — that it hired Puleo over Stern because Puleo gave a better teaching performance — might be pretextual.” Dissenting opinion post at 319. Though the dissent characterizes the Chair’s statement as the “only” evidence from which pretext could be inferred, id., the jury will plainly be entitled to assess that statement in the context of the record as a whole — including the circumstances that Puleo’s teaching performance was evaluated by a committee whose majority, appointed by the- University in a deviation from its usual procedure, did not know the language in which he taught — and to conclude that the relative teaching performances of Stern and Puleo were not a genuine reason for the University’s decision and that the decision was based in whole or in part on a preference for hiring a person of Hispanic origin.
In sum, where, as here, the proffered rationale was that an evaluation had been made that one candidate was better than another, and the challenged decision was made only after the University had deviated from its normal decisionmaking procedures, had stated that it needed more Hispanics in the department in question, had appointed advis-ors who lacked proficiency in the skills they were asked to evaluate, and had informed another potential candidate that Stern’s candidacy would not be considered seriously, we eonclude that there were genuine issues of fact to be tried as to whether the University’s explanation that it hired Puleo only because he was better than Stern was true, and whether the University refused to give serious consideration to Stern’s candidacy because he was not of Hispanic origin.
CONCLUSION
We have considered all of the University’s arguments on this appeal in support of summary judgment and have found them to be without merit. The judgment is vacated, and the matter is remanded for trial.