In Morgan v. Regents of University of California (2000) 88 Cal.App.4th 52, a former state employee had been laid off. He maintained that the layoff itself constituted illegal discrimination under the FEHA, he also claimed the subsequent failure to rehire him for other positions violated the state's own rehire policies, and constituted discrimination in violation of the FEHA. The employee in Morgan presented evidence that some personnel managers, not directly involved in the rehire decisions under review, had access to documents in his personnel file that disclosed he had made other claims including discrimination claims against his employer. ( Morgan, supra, 88 Cal.App.4th at pp. 57-59.) The laid off employee in Morgan asserted that the violation of a state rehire policy, and the notations in his personnel file, constituted circumstantial evidence raising an inference that the failure to rehire him after his layoff was unlawfully retaliatory, and was based on his prior assertion of discrimination claims. In its motion for summary judgment, the state presented evidence that it had hired other, better qualified, employees for the positions in question, and that even if it technically had violated its own rehire policies, this would not provide the necessary causal connection between Morgan's prior discrimination claims and the failure to rehire, so as to support a retaliation claim. ( Morgan, supra, at pp. 67, 75.) The trial court granted summary judgment, and this ruling was affirmed on appeal. As stated in Morgan, supra, "to avoid summary judgment, appellant had to offer substantial evidence that the employer's stated nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse action was untrue or pretextual, or evidence the employer acted with a discriminatory animus, or a combination of the two, such that a reasonable trier of fact could conclude the employer engaged in intentional discrimination. An employee in this situation can not simply show the employer's decision was wrong, mistaken, or unwise. Rather, the employee must demonstrate such weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer's proffered legitimate reasons for its action that a reasonable factfinder could rationally find them unworthy of credence, citation, and hence infer that the employer did not act for the . . . asserted non-discriminatory reasons. . . . ( Morgan, supra, 88 Cal.App.4th at p. 75.) "To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, a plaintiff must show that she engaged in protected activity, that she was thereafter subjected to adverse employment action by her employer, and there was a causal link between the two. The retaliatory motive is proved by showing that plaintiff engaged in protected activities, that his employer was aware of the protected activities, and that the adverse action followed within a relatively short time thereafter.. . . Essential to a causal link is evidence that the employer was aware that the plaintiff had engaged in the protected activity." ( Morgan, supra, 88 Cal.App.4th at pp. 69-70)