Foster v. Dalton

Sharon C. Foster (plaintiff) worked as a professional affairs coordinator at the Newport Naval Hospital (hospital) in Rhode Island. The hospital undertook a noncompetitive search for a management analyst. Commander William Travis assembled a list of five candidates including Foster, who was the only who already worked at the hospital and the only one who was non-Caucasian. Most naval facilities followed a policy of selecting internal candidates, but Commander Travis did not hire Foster. Instead, after seeing the list of candidates, Commander Travis asked why his friend James Berry was omitted. Commander Travis then directed George Warch, the civilian program specialist, to rewrite the job posting to require certain computer expertise that Berry had, specify a lower grade at which Berry would qualify, and generate a new list. Commander Travis also suggested that he would invoke the Veterans Recruitment Appointment, which provided preference to veterans, like Berry, in certain government jobs. The new list yielded only one name: Berry’s. Berry was appointed to the management analyst position. Foster filed an administrative complaint with the Navy alleging that the hospital discriminated against her based on race and gender, to no avail. Foster then sued the Secretary of Navy (secretary) (defendant) in the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, alleging race discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII). The court found that Foster proved a prime facie case of discrimination, and that Foster was more qualified than Berry. However, the district court ruled for the secretary, finding that a nondiscriminatory motivation, cronyism, explained the decision. At trial, Command Travis claimed Berry was the most qualified and denied the allegation of cronyism. Foster appealed.