Jiang v. City of Tulsa

── Jiang v. City of Tulsa ── Case No.: 25-5097 Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: March 17, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 25-5097 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS March 17, 2026 Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________ HUA JIANG, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. No. 25-5097 CITY OF TULSA, Defendant - Appellee. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 4:23-CV-00255-CVE-CDL) _________________________________ Mark A. Smith of Caruso & Smith, PLLC, Tulsa, Oklahoma (Daniel E. Smolen of Smolen & Roytman, PLLC, Tulsa, Oklahoma, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant. Hayes T. Martin, Assistant City Attorney (Jack C. Blair, City Attorney, and R. Lawson Vaughn, Senior Assistant City Attorney with him on the brief), Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellee. _________________________________ Before MATHESON, PHILLIPS, and ROSSMAN, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ When he applied to be the superintendent of Tulsa’s A.B. Jewell water- treatment plant, Hua Jiang was an accomplished engineer. But the city wanted  Appellate Case: 25-5097 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 2 someone with leadership experience. And Jiang, a middle-aged man from China, didn’t have any. So the city hired a younger, white candidate who did. In the process, the city violated its written hiring policies. Those policies required the city to hire someone with a college degree in biology, engineering, environmental sciences, or a related field. Yet the hired candidate didn’t have a degree at all. Jiang reported the city’s error to its civil-service commission, which confirmed that the city had violated its policies. In response, the city removed the job posting’s degree requirement to reflect the city’s customary practice of substituting experience for education. The city then redid its hiring. The same three people applied, and, again, the city hired the candidate with more leadership experience. Jiang sued the city for discrimination. He alleged that the reason the city didn’t choose him for superintendent was his age and race. Though the city had said that it wanted a candidate with more leadership experience, Jiang argued that this justification was pretext for the city’s discriminatory animus. He also argued that the city removed the degree requirement to retaliate for his reporting discrimination. At summary judgment, Jiang pointed to his superior qualifications, the city’s subjective hiring process, and the procedural shortcuts the city took to hire its preferred candidate. But Jiang didn’t point to facts upon which a jury could find that the city was untruthful about valuing a candidate with 2  Appellate Case: 25-5097 Document: 29-1 Date Filed: 03/17/2026 Page: 3 leadership experience. So the district court granted summary judgment to the city. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. BACKGROUND I. Factual Background We present the facts in the light most favorable to Jiang, the nonmoving party. See