Temporal proximity supports retaliation claim

A woman’s termination two weeks after she made a report of racial discrimination, together with other allegations of hostile conduct during that same period, supported an inference of causation that made her retaliation claim plausible. But her hostile work environment and discrimination claims were properly dismissed as insufficiently pleaded.

Background

Newel Ali, an Arab-American woman, appeals from the district court’s order dismissing the 42 U.S.C. § 1981 claims she filed against her former employer, BC Architects Engineers PLC. The district court held that Ali failed to plausibly allege that BC had discriminated or retaliated against her on the basis of race or created a hostile work environment.

Race discrimination

In support of her refusal-to-promote claim, Ali alleges that she applied for the position of structural engineer, that she was qualified for the position and that someone of a different race was selected for the position. Standing alone, however, those factual allegations are insufficient to support a plausible race-discrimination claim. Ali’s additional allegations—for instance, that a white man assumed her temporary structural engineering duties after her return home from Turkey in November 2015—are insufficient to support a reasonable inference of intentional race discrimination. The district court thus properly dismissed Ali’s race-discrimination claim predicated on BC’s refusal to promote her.

The same goes for Ali’s claim that she was fired because of her race. Ali alleges that BC hired a non-Arab person to replace her, and that BC treated other, non-Arab employees more considerately when terminating them. These allegations are insufficient to support a reasonable inference of intentional race discrimination. And Ali’s remaining allegations in support of her discriminatory-termination claim are too speculative and nonspecific to defeat a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. The district court thus correctly dismissed Ali’s race-discrimination claim based on her termination.

Hostile work environment

Ali focuses on several details in the operative complaint that, she contends, make her hostile-work-environment claim plausible: that BC’s owners repeatedly asked about her travels to Turkey; that she was demoted—twice—after those travels and that, at the time she was fired, an owner commented that she was being terminated, in part, for “bringing [her] mother’s problems” into the workplace.

But the operative complaint fails to support a reasonable inference that any of that conduct related to Ali’s race. And even if BC’s conduct was racially tinged, the operative complaint does not plausibly allege that such conduct was severe or pervasive enough to alter Ali’s conditions of employment and create an abusive work environment. Accordingly, the district court properly dismissed Ali’s hostile-work-environment claim.

Retaliation

Ali alleges that she was denied a promotion to structural engineer, in part, because she orally complained about race discrimination within the company about three months before applying for the position. However, the temporal proximity between that reporting and BC’s failure to select her for the position is too tenuous to support a reasonable inference of causation. Any inference of retaliation is further weakened by the operative complaint’s allegation that Ali was not selected for the structural engineer position because she was more valuable to BC as a CAD drafter. Accordingly, the district court properly dismissed Ali’s claim that BC retaliated against her by denying her a promotion.

Ali also alleges that she made another oral report of racial discrimination to BC’s owners on March 30, 2016. She further alleges that her work performance was satisfactory throughout her tenure, and that she was fired on April 15, 2016. Unlike the three-month gap between Ali’s initial complaint and BC’s failure to promote her, a mere two weeks passed between Ali’s March 30 report and her firing; a “close temporal proximity” that supports an inference of causation.

Moreover, Ali alleges that, in the time between her March 30 report and her firing, she was twice denied reasonable requests to work from home to care for her sick son—the inference being that BC became hostile toward her after she made her report. Taking these allegations together, Ali has plausibly stated a retaliatory-termination claim under § 1981.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded.

Ali v. BC Architects Engineers PLC, Appeal No. 19-1582, Oct. 15, 2020. 4th Cir. (per curiam), from EDVA at Alexandria (Trenga). Arinderjit Dhali for Appellant. Lars H. Liebeler for Appellee. VLW 020-2-272. 11 pp.