Central Educational Service District-ESD 171 (ESD 171)refused to hire him
because of his opposition to his former employer's racial discrimination stated a
valid cause of action.'
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A. Jin Zhu V. Waterville School District No. 209
Waterville School District No. 209 hired Zhu as a math teacher in 2006. In
2010, Waterville issued a notice of probable cause for Zhu's discharge, which he
'ESD ITl's briefing refers to "Zin Zhu." Def.'s Opening Br. at 1. We defer to the
plaintiffs spelling of his own name.
For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
Jin Zhu V. ESD 171, No. 94209-9
appealed. The hearing officer determined that there was not probable cause for
discharge and restored Zhu to his position. Jin Zhu v. Waterville Sch. Dist. No.
209, No. CV-10-0333-LRS, 2012 WL 220273, at *2(E.D. Wash. Jan. 25, 2012)
(court order). Zhu then sued Waterville in federal district court, alleging that
Waterville had subjected him to racially motivated disparate treatment, a hostile
work environment, and retaliation in violation of42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 2000e-2, and
2000e-3. Id. at*l.
Zhu is a United States citizen who emigrated from China in 2004. His
complaint alleged that he filed multiple grievances with Waterville regarding
hostile and abusive actions by his students. For instance,
Zhu described being called a chink, a communist, and gay by
his students; in 2008 Zhu was the subject of a cartoon that depicted a
border patrol shooting someone described as a communist chink; and
in May,2009 a student scrawled a hateful racial attack against Zhu on
a bathroom wall, saying he hoped Zhu's new house would bum down.
Id. at *3 n.2. Zhu alleged that instead of attempting to remedy the situation,