Week 2

Procedural History:
Lam filed a claim for two different hiring searches in District Court against the University of Hawaii. Lam lost both claims and then filed another claim in the Court of Appeals; the Court of Appeals dismissed the second claim outright but found an issue of fact with the lower court’s handling of the first claim. The Court of Appeals remanded the case to the District Court regarding the first search, and held with the lower court regarding the second search. 
Legal Issue:
Did either of the two hiring searches conducted for a director position at the University of Hawaii’s School of Law unlawful discriminate against Lam? 
Facts of the case:
In 1987, Lam responded to a hiring search for a full-time director put out by the University of Hawaii’s Law School’s Pacific Asian Legal Studies program. Lam, a well-educated individual, made it to the final pool of candidates. An appointments committee was established consisting of Professors Matsuda, Yamamoto, and Roth (as well as two students). Matsuda had to leave the committee intermittently, and a senior faculty member named Professor A asked Matsuda to pass along a recommendation for themselves as a replacement. Matsuda knew that Lam and Professor A had a “run-in” the previous year, but Matsuda passed along the recommendation anyways. The committee was originally going to present ten individuals to the faculty for selection, but they decided to select just one (a white male) instead. Lam, worried about her chances with Professor A on the committee, did not request his removal from the group but rather requested the committee presented five names to the faculty instead of just one.
The Dean brought up the idea of cancelling the whole search in order to accommodate an Asian male candidate who had missed the application deadline, which could in turn benefit Lam by requiring the replacement of Professor A on a new search committee. Lam disagreed with the Dean, believing it would be unfair to open up the search to a new candidate. Professor A voiced his negative opinions about Lam to the committee (including his belief in her ineptitude and incompetence), but Lam had supporters to dispute his claims who complained to the Dean. The Dean had faculty requesting Professor A’s removal, meanwhile Lam and an EEO officer also petitioned the Dean to abandon the idea of including the new candidate; the Dean would go on to announce the resignation of Professor A from the search committee.
The candidate list narrowed down to four went up for consideration by the law school faculty which ended in a bitter decision two weeks later to cancel the search. Lam filed a discrimination complaint with the university which was rejected after an investigation, the investigation did discover confidentiality breaches and procedural violations occurred during the search. The university put together another search committee a few years later which consisted of three white members and two Asian students. In the second search the Dean chose to ignore all of the recommendations that came from the EEO officers, leaving no mechanisms in place to screen out potential bias. Lam did not fare well in the second search as she was not included in any of the final lists, the committee even chose to meet with candidates who had scored lower than Lam in the first search. The committee chose a white Harvard Law graduate who declined the position, then they chose to cancel the search rather than offer the position to the other finalists. 
Legal Rule Applied:
Lam filed a claim alleging violations under Title VI, XII, and IX; the litigation focused primarily on Title XII. 
Analysis:
The court applied a four-part test to determine if Lam’s case was a prima facie case of unlawful employment discrimination, the test originates from McDonnel Douglas Corp. v. Green. Lam belongs to a protected class (1), she did apply for a job she was qualified for and was rejected despite her qualifications (2,3), and the university continued to search for similarly qualified applicants after denying her employment (4). The District Court established Lam’s case to be a prima facie case, which left the burden of proof to the employer; the employer then met their burden to prove that they weren’t without reason to dismiss Lam’s application by citing Lam’s lack of scholarship and faculty disagreement surrounding what the characteristic requirements  for the position should be. Lam responded by submitting evidence of discriminatory bias occurring on behalf of Professor A (who, the court found, “harbored prejudicial feelings towards Asians and women”) and another professor who exhibited Japanese cultural prejudices and believed the position should be filled by a male. 
The District Court did not find the evidence persuasive, deciding that the bias may have been present by members on the committee but that the bias was not proved, in context, to have been the determining motive behind the hiring decision faced by Lam; further, the removal of Professor A from the committee was indicative of a lack of a clear motive to discriminate. The District Court considered the Deans inclusion of an Asian male sufficient enough to dismiss the claim of racism, and the selection of a white woman enough to dismiss the claim of gender bias, which the Court of Appeals disagreed with. The court determined that Lam was subject to stereotypes applicable to Asian women which are not necessarily shared by the interests/stereotypes applicable to white women or Asian men. The Court of Appeals decided that the District Court failed to fully consider the presence of potentially unlawful biases within a full and appropriate understanding of the university’s selection process. Because the District Court failed to consider how potential biases may have pervaded the direction of the group’s decision, and because the court erred in its consideration of Title VII’s applicability to intersectional discrimination when analyzing appropriate evidence, the Court of Appeals remands the first search to be reconsidered in a new trial of fact by the District Court and affirms the lower court’s decision with regards to the second search. 
Conclusion:
The Court of Appeals remands the first search to be reconsidered in a new trial of fact by the District Court and affirms the lower court’s decision with regards to the second search.