Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 845926.pdf

Citation: Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 845926.pdf
Jurisdiction: Washington (state)
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Original Source: https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/845926.pdf ↗

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professorships are subject to yearly renewal while assistant professorships are

permanent, particularly where the comparators are other doctors in the same

department performing similar work as Dr. Litvack. Excluding comparators based on

their permanent versus annual renewal basis implies that permanent professorships are

not subject to the same policies, procedures, and standards of care as acting

professorships or, worse, that it is acceptable to discriminate against acting professors

but not permanent professors. Nothing in the record supports such an inference and

disregarding comparator evidence under these circumstances makes little sense.

Turning summary judgment on narrow distinctions defeats the “fundamental concept of

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No. 84592-6-I/21

allowing discrimination claims to be decided on the merits.” Johnson, 80 Wn. App. at

230.

Because some of the provided comparators were male UW doctors in the

Department, doing the same type work as Dr. Litvack, who committed acts of

comparable seriousness, the trial court erred in excluding those doctors as comparators

for evaluating evidence sufficient to satisfy the pretext prong.

3

Dr. Litvack argues the trial court erred in ruling that temporal evidence was only

relevant to the retaliation claim because her gender was static throughout her

employment with UW. We agree.

Dr. Litvack presented evidence that in the months before her termination, she

became more outspoken about gender equity at UW. She challenged the male head of

the academic promotions committee about gender bias at a faculty meeting.

Additionally, Dr. Litvack gave a presentation at a faculty retreat on the work of the