## Facts

- Anthony Ash and John Hithon, African-American superintendents at Tyson Foods’ Gadsden, Alabama poultry plant, sought promotion to two shift manager positions.
- Tyson selected two white male candidates for the positions.
- Ash and Hithon sued under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, alleging race discrimination in promotion decisions.
- Plaintiffs argued Tyson’s stated reasons for its selections were pretextual, including by claiming plaintiffs were better qualified than the selected candidates.
- Plaintiffs also presented evidence that the decisionmaker referred to each plaintiff as “boy” on some occasions.
- A jury found for plaintiffs and awarded compensatory and punitive damages; the district court later entered judgment as a matter of law for Tyson under Rule 50(b) and alternatively ordered a new trial under Rule 50(c).
- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed judgment as a matter of law as to Ash, reversed as to Hithon, and affirmed the grant of a new trial for both plaintiffs, reasoning in part that “boy” without a racial modifier was not evidence of discrimination and that comparative-qualifications proof shows pretext only when the disparity “jump[s] off the page and slap[s] you in the face.”

## Issues

1. Whether the use of the term “boy,” without racial modifiers, can be probative evidence of racial animus in an employment discrimination case.
2. Whether the Eleventh Circuit applied a legally proper standard for inferring pretext from evidence that plaintiffs’ qualifications were superior to the selected candidates’ qualifications.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated the Eleventh Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
- The Court held the Eleventh Circuit erred to the extent it treated racial modifiers as necessary for “boy” to be probative of bias.
- The Court held the Eleventh Circuit’s “jump off the page and slap you in the face” formulation for comparative-qualifications pretext was “unhelpful and imprecise.”
- The Court did not decide the ultimate merits, directing the Eleventh Circuit to reconsider whether its errors affected its prior conclusions.

## Legal Principles

- Workplace language potentially reflecting racial animus must be assessed in context; “boy” is not categorically benign merely because it lacks an explicit racial descriptor.
- Whether “boy” supports an inference of discriminatory intent depends on factors such as context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage.
- Comparative-qualifications evidence can support an inference of pretext under appropriate circumstances; courts should not apply colloquial or overly demanding verbal formulas that distort the legal standard.
- When an appellate court applies incorrect legal rules in evaluating discrimination evidence, vacatur and remand are appropriate so the lower court can reconsider the case under correct standards.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court required reconsideration of the promotion-discrimination claims because the Eleventh Circuit improperly minimized potentially probative “boy” remarks through a modifier-based rule and used an imprecise, overly stringent comparative-qualifications test for pretext.


Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 546 U.S. 454 (2006)