Ann Hopkins Case Summary

Ann Hopkins was denied a partnership at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), a prominent professional services networking firm based in the United States, in 1982 (Badaracco, 1). She later sued the company for discriminatory promotion practices due to her loss. While the Supreme Court ruled that Ann Hopkins was indeed discriminated against the promotion, there can be arguments made for and against the view that Ann Hopkins was subject to discrimination during the assessment process. The case can be made that Hopkins was discriminated against due to three key factors during the assessment. These factors, while independently may not necessarily denote discriminatory behavior, can still signify discriminatory conduct based on the context and weight

surrounding them. Through being told to act in a traditionally feminine manner to secure status within the workplace, measured against stereotypes of how women should act within the workplace and evaluated heavily on on a vague concept of “interpersonal” skills, Hopkins was discriminated against during her evaluation for partner at PwC.
To ensure that Hopkins would receive a partnership, Hopkins’ boss, Thomas Beyer told her to, “relax” and “take charge less often” while looking more feminine through “using less profanity, stop smoking, drinking beer and carrying a handbag and not a briefcase” (Badaracco, 23).

Furthermore, Hopkins was told to “take a course at a charm school” or found lacking in the “congeniality factor” which were dated standards only applied to women in a workplace (Badaracco, 14). When considering that Hopkins was the only woman nominated for partner, it is evident that these comments are derogatory and sexist when evaluating a candidate for a job. Finally, pages of Hopkins’ assessment chose to only comment on her lack of vaguely defined “interpersonal” skills rather than evaluating any of Hopkins’ work, specific skill sets or holistically weighing multiple skills to see if the entirety of her performance was worthy of partnership. In fact, towards the end of the evaluation, an assessor wrote, “If you get around the personality thing, she’s at the top of her list or way above average” (Badaracco, 23). These three factors, linked clearly to discriminatory practices, drastically affected Hopkins’ chances at securing the partnership and, ultimately, led her to file a sex-based discrimination lawsuit against the

company.
There can be arguments made for the view that Ann Hopkins’ loss of partnership was not due to discriminatory behavior during assessment but, rather, linked to legitimate problems with her performance at the company. Hopkins’ faulty treatment of her subordinates, her inappropriate attitude in the workplace, her willingness to break company policy in a substantial way and her lack of efficiency in the job’s tech components are justifiable reasons which demonstrate that the rejection of her candidacy was not based on discriminatory conduct. For example, “Karen Nold, one of the senior managers, ‘was quite depressed about things’” and “just felt that Ann’s overbearing style was smothering her attempts to . . . bring forth her ideas” (Badaracco, 6). Moreover, “several members of the St. Louis office staff later complained about Hopkins” and “said she was ‘direct, abrupt, sometimes insensitive and demeaning at times’” (Badaracco, 9). These evaluations did not evaluate Hopkins adversely due to sex-based characteristics or double-standards, they were negative reviews based on the way in which Ann had treated colleagues while working.
Additionally, Hopkins’ inappropriate workplace attitude stemmed from her unwillingness to cooperate with her colleagues, even when that help was previously guaranteed. A colleague of Hopkins had this genuine negative evaluation when he claimed that, “The reason one of them gave ... his concern that problems would grow worse if she acquired the power and authority of a partner” (Badaracco, 10). Hopkins would not only treat this colleague brusquely but, when he was understaffed, “Hopkins offered him one of her staff members, only to withdraw the offer the next day” (Badaracco, 10). Hopkins also obstructed company policy when she had another woman in the organization “work 12 to 14 hours per day during the project but only to charge 8 hours per day” which “left [an assessor] questioning Ann’s staff management methods and the honesty of her responses to [his] questions” (Badaracco, 6). The final way in which Hopkins’ loss of partnership was not based on discriminatory practices was her documented lack of skills in the tech components of her job. Many of Hopkins’ colleagues during evaluation commented on her lack of tech skills and how these skills, in conjunction with her other faults, did not qualify her to be considered for the partnership. This rationale is also not discriminatory as it is an accurate assessment of Hopkins’ lack of skills that are quite necessary for a substantial promotion within this particular firm. Therefore, these multiple factors can be rooted in a non-biased rationale to reject anyone for partnership and were applied to Hopkins. The case can be made that Hopkins was not discriminated against when it came to her assessment for partner.
However, the Supreme Court found that Hopkins was discriminated against. Accordingly, a theory which exhibits how Hopkins was discriminated against could explain why she did not receive the partnership. The status characteristics theory is the best form of assessment when evaluating the assessments and decisions made during the Hopkins’ case. Status characteristics theory is defined as “a theory that states that differences in status characteristics create status hierarchies within groups” (Robbins and Judge, 144). The advantage of describing this case through the lens is that it provides a framework to show the assessments and the environment of PwC led to a culture of bias and discrimination where a woman like Hopkins could not be made partner. The three components of status characteristics theory, individual power, ability to contribute and personal characteristics, can be assessed alongside Hopkins’ case to demonstrate how discrimination led to a loss in partnership (Robbins and Judge, 144-145). First, the assessors and final decision-makers , who were all male, controlled the outcome of Hopkins’ nomination. Since they had the most power within the organization and found Hopkins to be unfit as she disrupted the norms established at PwC, the assessors used discriminatory practices when they denied Hopkins partnership. Second, while Hopkins was shown as clearly able to handle the job of partner and satisfy group goals at the organizations, she was not rated highly in terms of interpersonal and technical skills. These skills were weighted heavily when it came to Hopkins as they were viewed by the group at PwC to be absolutely necessary in order to have high status, even if it meant that they were punishing Hopkins for being perceived as inadequate due to stereotypical conceptions of her gender. Third, a component of the status characteristics theory states that an individual is given status when their characteristics is viewed as something positive by the group (Robbins and Judge, 145). Since Hopkins was one of the women senior managers and only woman nominated for partner, her individual and irreverence for traditionally feminine characteristics opposed the group’s traditionally masculine makeup. Therefore, as the evaluations suggested, the group stigmatized Hopkins’ individual characteristics which they found to be incongruous with the conventional ideals established for partners.
Ultimately, Hopkins’ case reveals that PwC needs better methods when evaluating for partner that do not rely on mechanisms which can promote discriminatory behavior.

These methods ought to be set on measuring job-relevant characteristics, collecting objective and quantifiable data on candidates while promoting transparency and accountability in their promotion methods (Rissing, 16). PwC ought to develop a rubric which can have a rating scale and detailed explanations for each metric on the scale which focuses only on the job-relevant characteristics of the candidates in question. For example, rather than a vague comment on interpersonal skills, a rating system can be established to ask how well on a scale of one to ten does a candidate work with their team on a daily basis. Then, each of the job-relevant metrics on the evaluation form could be given a predetermined weight. Consequently, even if a candidate ranked low on interpersonal skills on the form, her expertise in other stations could easily outweigh this weakness and prove her eligibility for partner. Moreover, PwC needs to set more objective criteria to determine who becomes partner within the organization. Rather than solely relying on personal reports and references from a variety of people, it needs to have some established metric which would evenly weigh the hours, success rate and quantifiable performance rate to provide detailed information to assess a candidate. Even if the personal references are heavily

skewed one direction or another, PwC would have another objective standard to measure the competence of a candidate. Finally, PwC ought to reveal how their processes affect the outcomes of their promotion process and review these processes each year to ensure that bias and discrimination does not seep through the objective mechanisms. These processes, when applied evenly to all candidates, would provide a more impartial evaluation of each candidate. Hopkins was unfairly evaluated based on bias and a poor evaluation process at PwC. In the future, PwC can ensure that they do not repeat the same mistakes through understanding how bias (like the status characteristics theory) is prevalent in their methods and how the promotion of fairly weighted metrics can save them from making the same mistakes.