Hasan v. Contra Costa County
Saed Hasan came to the U.S. from Palestine to study engineering. At the
University of South Dakota he maintained a 4.0 GPA for both his
undergraduate and graduate degrees. After three years working as a civil
engineer on a variety of projects, he applied for the position of entry-level
engineer with Contra Costa County, California.
Hasan went through the interview process, and in the verbal portion
ranked second in a field of 344 applicants. There were four openings at the
time, but Hasan was not offered work. He applied again in 1998, and this
time ranked first in the verbal portion of the interview. Again, he was not
offered work. Over two years the county advertised a total of 12 openings
for civil engineers with Hasan’s background and experience. One of those
positions was never filled because the county interviewers were not
satisfied with the candidates. The other 11 were filled with people who
spoke English without a foreign accent. The Defendants admitted that,
with one or two exceptions, Hasan appeared to be “demonstrably better
qualified” than the engineers who were hired.
After Hasan complained to Human Resources he met with Clifford
Hansen, Deputy Director of Public Works. Hansen had been on both hiring
committees, and in fact, hiring decisions were his responsibility alone.
Hansen was quite straightforward in listing his reasons for rejecting
Hasan. He stated that, “when it comes to choosing between a person who
has an accent and a person who has no accent, he will choose the person
who has no accent.” Hasan filed a lawsuit.
During discovery – the period before a case goes to trial in which both
sides assemble evidence and work on strategy – Hasan’s attorneys
requested access to the interview committee’s written notes from the
verbal interviews. The Defendants turned over only one set of notes, and
claimed that notes of the other two people on the October 1997 interview
panel had been lost. Defendants also lost the envelope in which the notes
were kept, and finally, they destroyed the tape recording of Hasan’s 1998
oral interview.