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vant job qualifications, we must disagree, for an employer can
"properly take into account" factors such as "good interpersonal skills
and . . . ability to lead a team." Amirmokri v. Balt. Gas & Elec. Co.,
60 F.3d 1126, 1130 (4th Cir. 1995). It is not within our authority to
dictate the factors that employers must weigh in making a promotion,
and we see nothing in Title VII to indicate that Congress wished to
require companies to disregard the successful personal interactions
that make for a productive workplace. This is especially true where,
as here, the employer is charged with protecting the public in serious
emergencies and the plaintiff has experienced problems acting profes-
sionally at work. And while Hux attempts vaguely to pin her various
misadventures on her fellow employees’ unwillingness to cooperate
with a female, this argument is, as the district court noted, based on
Hux’s "own conclusory opinion and rumor alone."
Second, Hux attempts to discern pretext in the City’s reliance on
the fact that she had fewer years of fire service experience than suc-
cessful male candidates. To this end, she focuses her attention on a
single successful candidate, Adrian Hanline. Hux and Hanline both
served for a period on "squad units," small teams comprised of fire-
fighters and medics that were eventually phased out in 1995. Hux
contends that her three years of squad service should count towards
her total fire service experience, as Hanline’s approximately six years
apparently did towards his. Hux, however, served on a squad unit at
a time when its primary responsibilities pertained to EMS — in fact,
as the district court explained, "90-95% of her work on the squad con-
tinued to focus exclusively on providing emergency medical services,
rather than fire suppression." Hanline, by comparison, began serving
on a squad at an earlier point, when it was still heavily involved in
firefighting. Hanline was also promoted during the February 2002
process, which Hux does not even challenge here.
Hux further suggests that most of the calls a fire station receives
are EMS-related, and that any reliance on fire suppression experience
thus lacks credence. This argument must fail, for Hux essentially asks
that we determine whether a Fire Department should be more con-
cerned with firefighting or EMS. Beginning down this road — with
courts acting as strategists that identify the core objectives an
employer should pursue — would bring promotions decisions under
the greenhorn supervision of the federal courts.
10 HUX v. CITY OF NEWPORT NEWSJump to an indexed page (12 of 12)