Joan A. HAGANS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Cecil ANDRUS, Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Defendant-Appellee

Joan Hagans brought suit pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Her complaint alleged that the Secretary of the Interior, by his agents and employees (the government), unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of sex by hiring a male for a position for which she alleges to have been more qualified. At the conclusion of Hagans’ case, the district court granted the government’s motion for an involuntary dismissal, pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court held that Hagans had failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination. Hagans appeals from the judgment for the government and from the district judge’s failure to grant her motion that he recuse himself. We affirm in part, and reverse and remand in part.

I

Hagans began her government service in 1955 when she had a GS — 4 position with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In 1957, she received her first supervisory position. By 1970, she had moved up to a GS-12 position as a chief adjudicator, with a staff of 35 to 40 persons. In 1974, she became Chief of Operations of the Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Office, a GS-13 position.…