Plaintiff Hua Jiang sued defendant City of Tulsa in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma raising claims of race discrimination, age discrimination, and retaliation under Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Oklahoma Anti-Discrimination Act. Before the court is Defendant City of Tulsa’s motion for summary judgment.
Statement of Undisputed Facts
Hua Jiang has worked for the City of Tulsa since 2010 as a senior engineer in the water and sewer department, currently classified at level EX-44 on the City’s pay scale. In June 2021, Jiang applied for a water treatment plant superintendent position at the AB Jewell Water Treatment Plant, which would not have provided a pay raise but offered valuable managerial experience.
The original job posting required graduation from an accredited college or university with a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology, environmental/biological sciences, or a related field, plus five years of progressively responsible experience in water treatment plant operations. The position also required considerable knowledge of water treatment principles, engineering design, and supervisory abilities.
Three candidates were certified for the position: Jiang, John Curry, and Dylan Hutchcraft. Jiang holds a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla and had extensive technical experience. Curry had been a maintenance supervisor at the plant since 2014 but lacked a bachelor’s degree, having completed only 60 credit hours at Tulsa Community College. Hutchcraft had been a treatment plant operations supervisor since May 2020 and had completed 66 credit hours at Southern New Hampshire University.
During the first interview process in June 2021, Jiang received 83 points, Curry received 81 points, and Hutchcraft received 88 points from the interview panel. Water supply systems manager Stefanie Hunter selected Hutchcraft for the position, citing his balanced qualifications across technical skills, leadership, and communication abilities, while noting that Jiang had excellent technical skills but needed better communication skills and managerial experience.
Jiang filed a grievance challenging the decision, alleging he was more qualified and that the selection process involved racial discrimination. The Civil Service Commission investigated and concluded that the City failed to follow its personnel policies regarding the substitution of experience for education when certifying Curry and Hutchcraft, who did not meet the educational requirements.
Following the Commission’s finding, the City changed its personnel policies in August 2021 and revised the job description for the treatment plant superintendent position. The new requirements allowed completion of 120 hours from an accredited college with five years of relevant experience, or 60 hours with seven years of relevant experience, eliminating the specific degree field requirements.
A second interview process was conducted in September 2021 with the same three candidates. During this round, the scores varied significantly among interviewers, with Jiang receiving the highest score from one interviewer but the lowest from another. Hunter again selected Hutchcraft, finding him to be the best all-around candidate despite Jiang’s superior technical qualifications.
Jiang filed a second grievance, which was denied by the Commission in January 2022. He subsequently filed an EEOC charge in November 2021, though it was not received by the EEOC until August 2022. Jiang also alleged various retaliatory acts by supervisors following his grievances, including project cancellations, exclusion from meetings, and poor performance reviews.
Legal Analysis
Race and Age Discrimination
The court applied the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework for analyzing Jiang’s discrimination claims. The City did not contest that Jiang could establish a prima facie case of discrimination and proceeded directly to articulating its legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the hiring decision. The City explained that Hunter preferred Hutchcraft because he demonstrated strong qualifications across multiple areas, including technical skills and leadership abilities, making him a better all-around candidate despite not being the strongest in any single category.
The court found that Jiang failed to establish pretext for discrimination. Jiang argued that the hiring process was wholly subjective and that the City violated its own policies by certifying unqualified candidates, then changed the job requirements to favor white and younger applicants. However, the court determined that the hiring process included objective criteria through structured interviews and scoring matrices, rejecting Jiang’s characterization of it as wholly subjective.
Regarding the claim that Jiang was vastly more qualified, the court applied the Tenth Circuit’s standard requiring an “overwhelming” merit disparity to infer pretext from superior qualifications alone. The court concluded that while Jiang had stronger educational and technical qualifications, the City could reasonably believe Hutchcraft was better qualified when considering leadership and managerial skills, which were equally important for the superintendent position. The court noted that Jiang’s belief in his superior qualifications was insufficient to establish pretext without more evidence.
The court also addressed Jiang’s argument that changing the job description after his successful grievance demonstrated discriminatory intent. The court found that expanding the applicant pool by itself did not suggest discriminatory purpose and that even assuming the City acted to widen the pool, this action did not inherently indicate racial or age-based discrimination.
Retaliation Claims
For the retaliation claims, the court found that Jiang engaged in protected activity by filing grievances alleging racial discrimination and an EEOC charge. However, the court concluded that Jiang failed to establish that he suffered an adverse employment action sufficient to support a retaliation claim.
Jiang alleged various retaliatory acts, including project cancellations, exclusion from meetings, poor performance reviews, and aggressive treatment by supervisors. The court characterized many of these allegations as perceived personal slights rather than concrete adverse actions affecting employment terms and conditions. The court noted that there was no evidence that Jiang’s job assignment, pay, schedule, or employment conditions were materially affected.
The court applied the standard that retaliatory conduct must be materially adverse enough to deter a reasonable person from making discrimination charges. Finding that Jiang’s allegations did not meet this threshold and that he continued to pursue discrimination claims despite the alleged retaliation, the court concluded he could not establish the adverse action element of his retaliation claim.
The court also found that even if Jiang could establish a prima facie retaliation case, he could not show that the City’s reasons for its actions were pretextual, applying the same analysis used for the discrimination claims.
The court granted summary judgment in favor of the City of Tulsa on all of Jiang’s claims of race discrimination, age discrimination, and retaliation under federal and state law.
Schrag on Law 