EMPLOYER DISCRIMINATION; EVIDENCE OF UNLAWFUL MOTIVATION; NEXUS – Departure from Past Practices or Procedures

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The Board finds departure from established procedures when an employer takes an adverse action in a way that is inconsistent with the way it normally goes about doing so. (Lake Elsinore Unified School District (2019) PERB Decision No. 2671, p. 7.) We may infer unlawful motive from a respondent’s departure from existing practices in its dealings with the charging party. (Garden Grove Unified School District (2009) PERB Decision No. 2086, adopting dismissal letter at p. 4.) To establish such an inference, the charging party must demonstrate what the respondent’s practice is and how the respondent deviated from that practice. (Ibid.; Los Angeles Unified School District (2014) PERB Decision No. 2390, pp. 11-12 & adopting proposed decision at p. 16.) In the instant matter, the Board found the District departed from established procedures in several ways when it removed Gibbons and Firtha as chairs, refused to recognize their reelection, and assigned them to Introductory Chemistry for the Fall 2020 semester. (pp. 29-30.)