A decision maker’s remarks that he did “not want to hire any more foreigners” and, in a demeaning tone, that he could not understand what the Pakistani-born plaintiff said because of his accent, were admissible as indirect evidence “probative of discriminatory bias when determining, along with other evidence,” if the decision maker’s reasons for promoting a white male instead of the foreign-born employee were pretextual, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held Jan. 5 ( Hasham v. California State Bd. of Equalization, 10th Cir., No. 98-3193, 1/5/00).
Zia U. Hasham worked as an auditor for the California State Board of Equalization in its Chicago office, one of three out-of-state offices maintained by CBOE to audit companies located outside California but doing business there and therefore possibly liable for California sales and use taxes. He sued under Title VII, charging national origin discrimination, after he was denied a promotion to a supervisory position in CBOE’s Houston office.
