BEFORE: RYAN, SUHRHEINRICH, and COLE, Circuit Judges.

   PER CURIAM. This appeal arises from claims by Randolph Frady under the whistleblower protection provision of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974(ERA), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 5851 (1988), which prohibits licensees of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) from discriminating against employees who engage in protected activity, such as identifying nuclear safety concerns or making complaints under the ERA. Pursuant to the ERA, Plaintiff Frady filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), alleging that his non-selection for fourteen different positions was the result of unlawful retaliation for his protected activities while working as a nuclear inspector for Defendant Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The case ultimately reached the Secretary of Labor (hereinafter Secretary), who found for Plaintiff with regard to three of the fourteen allegations.

    Petitioner TVA appeals the Secretary's decision for Plaintiff on those three allegations. The issues raised by Petitioner on appeal ask whether "the Secretary was arbitrary and

capricious in disregarding the ALJ's credibility determinations," and whether his "decision was supported by substantial evidence." We find that the Secretary's decision with regard to the three contested allegations is not supported by substantial evidence. We, therefore, REVERSE that decision.

    Plaintiff Frady was employed by TVA from 1978 until 1992. From 1983 on, he worked as a nuclear inspector at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants. While working as an inspector, he raised safety concerns with the NRC and TVA management on several occasions. In December 1990, Frady received notice that he would be terminated due to a reduction in force. In response, Frady filed a complaint under the ERA. The complaint resulted in a settlement agreement which extended Frady's employment with TVA until January 1992. As part of that agreement, Frady was placed in the Employee Transition Program from June 1991 until his termination. The program allowed him to seek a new position within TVA, which he did. However, Frady was not selected for any of the positions he applied for, and he filed ERA complaints challenging these non-selections.

    After an investigation by the DOL's Wage and Hour Division found no merit to Frady's complaints, he filed a request for a hearing. An administrative law judge (hereinafter AU), charged with making recommendations to the Secretary, conducted the hearing and thereafter dismissed eight of the fourteen allegations upon TVA's motion for summary judgment. The AU issued a written opinion discussing the remaining six allegations and recommended that they all be decided in TVA's favor. The Secretary adopted the ALJ's recommendations concerning the eight dismissed allegations and three of the six allegations decided on the merits, but found for Frady on the remaining three allegations, which are the only ones contested here. While on remand to the ALJ for determination of Plaintiffs remedy, the parties reached agreement on the

appropriate remedy, contingent upon this appeal. The resulting "Joint Stipulation" was recommended for approval by the ALJ, and the Administrative Review Board of the DOL issued an order approving it.

   Two of the three contested allegations concern Frady's application for machinist trainee positions at both the Watts Bar and Sequoyah nuclear plants, as well as for a steamfitter trainee position at Sequoyah. Applicants for each of these three positions were considered by a different three-person committee, consisting of a TVA representative, a member of the applicable union, and Kevin Green, a human resources manager for TVA. The TVA and union representatives were charged with ranking the applicants and making the hiring decisions, while Green was assigned to be a facilitator. Each of the committees ranked Frady below the applicants who were ultimately selected. The third contested allegation concerns Frady's application for a quality control inspector position at the Sequoyah facility. Shortly after the vacancy for this position was announced, a staffing study conducted by an outside consultant recommended that staffing levels at the facility be reduced. Roy Lumpkin, Frady's former supervisor and the supervisor for the open position, ultimately decided to cancel the vacancy without hiring anyone for it.

   We review the Secretary's decision to ensure that it is not "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." Ohio v. Ruckelshaus, 776 F.2d 1333, 1339 (6th Cir.1985) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)(Administrative Procedure Act)). As part of our review, "we must determine whether [the decision] is supported by substantial evidence, which is 'such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.' " Moon v. Transport Drivers, Inc., 836 F.2d 226, 229 (6th Cir.1987) (quoting Richardson v. Perales, 402 U.S. 389. 401 (1971)). The substantial evidence standard requires

us to consider evidence in the record that is contrary to the Secretary's findings and conclusions. Tel Data Corp. v. National Labor Relations Bd., 90 F.3d 1195, 1198 (6th Cir.1996).

   Although the ALJ only recommends a decision, the evidentiary support for the Secretary's conclusions "may be diminished, however, when the administrative law judge has drawn different conclusions." National Labor Relations Bd. v. Brown-Graves Lumber Co., 949 F.2d 194, 196-97 (6th Cir.1991). In particular, this court "will not normally disturb the credibility assessments of ... an administrative law judge, who has observed the demeanor of the witnesses." Litton Microwave Cooking Prods. Div., Litton Sys., Inc., 868 F.2d 854, 857 (6th Cir.1989) (reversing National Labor Relations Board, which declined to follow ALJ's recommendation to dismiss complaint) (internal quotes omitted); accord Curran v. Dept. of the Treasury, 714 F.2d 913, 915 (9th Cir.1983) ("Special deference is to be given the AL's credibility judgments"). Given the conflicts in this case between the conclusions of the ALJ and the Secretary, we must examine the record with particular scrutiny. Tel Data, 90 F.3d at 1198.

   The law governing Frady's proof of his claims was carefully laid out by the Secretary:

a complainant ... must first make a prima facie case of retaliatory action by the [defendant], by establishing that he engaged in protected activity, that he was subject to adverse action, and that the [defendant] was aware of the protected activity when it took the adverse action. Additionally, a complainant must present evidence sufficient to raise the inference that the protected activity was the likely reason for the adverse action. If a complainant succeeds in establishing the foregoing, the [defendant] must produce evidence of a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse action. The complainant bears the ultimate burden of persuading that the [defendant's] proffered reasons ... are a pretext for discrimination. At all times, the complainant bears the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the adverse action was in retaliation for protected activity.

Frady v. Tennessee Valley Authority, Nos. 92-ERA-19 & 92-ERA-34, slip op. at 5-6 (Secretary of Labor Oct. 23, 1995) (citations omitted) (hereinafter Secretary's Opinion); accord Moon, 836 F.2d at 229. The Secretary went on to state that, as part of the establishment of a prima facie case, "Frady must establish that he was qualified for such position; that, despite his qualifications, he was rejected; and that TVA continued to seek and/or select similarly qualified

applicants." Secretary's Opinion at 18 (adopted from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973)). The Secretary concluded that, for each of the three contested allegations, Frady established all the elements of a prima facie case discussed above and met his ultimate burden of proving that TVA's proffered reasons for its personnel decisions were a pretext for retaliation.

   Two of the three contested allegations involve the machinist and steamfitter trainee positions. The record contains little to support the Secretary's finding that Plaintiff established a prima facie case of retaliation with regard to these positions. As to the knowledge element of a prima facie case, we agree with the ALJ's finding that there is no evidence that members of the selection committees knew about Plaintiff's protected activity, including his earlier ERA complaint. (J.A. at 73). As to the inference element of a prima facie case, the Secretary found that Plaintiff "established an inference of retaliatory motive based on temporal proximity." Secretary's Opinion at 24. Where adverse employment action follows rapidly after protected activity, common sense and case law allows an inference of a causal connection. See Moon v. Transport Drivers, Inc., 836 F.2d 226, 229 (6th Cir.1987) (stating, in a case where the plaintiff was fired less than two weeks after making a complaint, that "the proximity in time between protected activity and adverse employment action may give rise to an inference of a causal connection"). However, because seven or eight months elapsed between Frady's most recent protected activity, namely the filing of the earlier ERA complaint, and the decisions by the selections committees, the Secretary's inference is a weak one.¹

   We find, however, that this conclusion is not supported by substantial evidence for a number of reasons. First, the two inspectors returned to their positions almost a year after the vacancy was canceled. Id. at 36 n. 26. Second, Roy Lumpkin, the manager who canceled the vacancy, moved to an unrelated position four months before the inspectors returned, (J.A. at 600), and was uninvolved in their return. Third, the two inspectors returned based on settlement agreements, whereas Plaintiff sought the position through regular application channels.² For

¹The Secretary chose to determine temporal proximity based on Frady reaching a settlement agreement with TVA in June 1991, two or three months before his non-selection by the committees. We believe that the date of the complaint, January 1991, is the more appropriate date to use, because 1) unlike a settlement agreement, a complaint is clearly a protected activity under the ERA, and 2) common sense dictates that employees are much more likely to be retaliated against for filing a complaint against their employer than for resolving the dispute with their employer by reaching a settlement agreement.

²Plaintiff's earlier settlement agreement guaranteed only that he would be placed in the Employee Transition Program.