Li

BACKGROUND

22 Plaintiff worked as a scientist at Merck from 2006 to 2023. Her claims of discrimination 23 and retaliation relate only to the latter period of her employment, from July 2020 to March 2023, 24 when she was supervised by Alexander Loktev. Plaintiff reported Loktev for alleged bias against 25 one of her mentees, James Zhang, which she claims lead to Zhang’s decision to quit working at 26 Merck. Although she had previously participated in interviewing prospective candidates, Plaintiff 27 exclusion was based on racial motives, but Loktev claimed he could no longer trust her when she disparaged Merck’s program to a candidate. After Zhang left, Plaintiff alleges that she was no longer assigned the role as a mentor. Loktev claimed she was criticized as a mentor and had not been doing a good job previously with Zhang. Plaintiff also claims that, after Zhang left, Loktev began to deprive her of support and forced her to get resources from other scientists or sites to advance her projects. Plaintiff also claims that Loktev began to remove her from high-profile studies and teams. Loktev claims that, during this time, Plaintiff excluded him…