Brown v. Snow

ORDER

In 1996, Robbyn Brown, an accountant employed by the Internal Revenue Service in southern Illinois, applied for a promotion to the position of Temporary Grade 13 Revenue Agent. Her qualifications were'good — on a scale of 1 to 5, her employee evaluations were in the 4-5 range. But the position went to Tim Neighbors, a white co-worker whose score in the comparative ranking for the position was higher than Brown’s. The episode repeated itself in 1998, when there was an opening for the same position on a permanent basis. Neighbors was again selected over Brown — not surprisingly, given that…