Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05014/USCOURTS-caDC-10-05014-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 7, 2010 Decided June 3, 2011

No. 10-5014

WILFRED SAMUEL RATTIGAN,

APPELLEE

v.

ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:04-cv-02009)

Charles W. Scarborough, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs 

was Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and Marleigh D. 

Dover, Assistant Director. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney, entered an appearance.

Jonathan C. Moore argued the cause for appellee. With 

him on the brief was James R. Klimaski,

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge KAVANAUGH.

TATEL, Circuit Judge: In this case, a jury found that the 

FBI violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by 

launching a security investigation of plaintiff, then an agent in 

its Saudi Arabia office, in retaliation for his filing of a 

discrimination complaint. On appeal, the government argues 

that plaintiff’s claim is nonjusticiable under Supreme Court 

and D.C. Circuit case law because adjudicating Title VII 

liability called for the jury to second-guess security judgments 

committed by law to FBI discretion. Because we agree that 

plaintiff’s case, as presented to the jury, invited just such

second-guessing, we vacate the judgment in plaintiff’s favor. 

But because we also believe that plaintiff might be able to 

pursue his retaliation claim without calling into question 

unreviewable security decisions, we remand for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

I.

Plaintiff-Appellee Wilfred Rattigan is a black male of 

Jamaican descent who has converted to Islam. He has worked 

for the FBI since 1987. In 1999, the FBI transferred Rattigan 

to the Office of the Legal Attaché at the United States 

Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The FBI has Legal Attaché 

offices, also known as “LEGAT” offices, in over forty 

countries. See Rattigan v. Holder (“Rattigan I”), 604 F. Supp. 

2d 33, 37 (D.D.C. 2009). Agents in these offices function as 

liaisons to security services in their host countries. LEGAT

offices are usually run by two agents, referred to respectively 

as the Legal Attaché (“LEGAT”) and the Assistant Legal 

Attaché (“ALAT”), as well as by temporary duty staff. Id.

LEGAT offices report to the FBI’s Office of International 

Operations (OIO), located in Washington, D.C. Id. at 38.

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Having initially served as ALAT in the Riyadh office, 

Rattigan was promoted to LEGAT in July 2000.

During his tenure in the Riyadh office, Rattigan made 

several complaints of workplace discrimination. Of particular 

relevance to this case, he filed a report with the Equal 

Employment Opportunity (EEO) Office on October 26, 2001,

alleging racial and national origin discrimination. This report 

followed a confrontation between Rattigan and his immediate 

supervisor, OIO Unit Chief Cary Gleicher, while Gleicher 

was visiting the Riyadh office in mid-October 2001. In a oneon-one meeting and then later in an office-wide meeting, 

Rattigan accused Gleicher and two other OIO supervisors—

Section Chief Michael Pyszczymuka and Deputy Assistant 

Director Leslie Kaciban—of rejecting his office’s requests for 

additional assistance and weapons on account of his race. 

Rattigan also claimed that the FBI sent Gleicher to visit the 

Riyadh office only because of Rattigan’s race. Returning to 

Washington, Gleicher informed Pyszczymuka and Kaciban of 

Rattigan’s complaints. On November 9, 2001, an EEO 

counselor interviewed Rattigan about his complaint, which 

included the allegations he had previously raised with

Gleicher, as well as other issues, such as Rattigan’s 

contention that Kaciban had made racially tinged threats. At a 

conference in January 2002, Rattigan personally informed 

Gleicher and Pyszczymuka that he was pursuing 

discrimination claims against them. An EEO counselor met 

with Kaciban, Gleicher, and Pyszczymuka about Rattigan’s

complaint on January 10, 2002.

At around the same time, the events giving rise to the 

FBI’s security investigation of Rattigan began unfolding. In 

late November 2001, Gleicher sent OIO Special Agent 

Donovan Leighton on a twenty-one day assignment to the 

Riyadh office, during which Leighton supposedly became 

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concerned about Rattigan’s behavior and management of the 

office. For example, on several occasions Leighton saw

Rattigan wearing “full Saudi Arabian costume” while in the 

U.S. embassy. Considering this “very unusual,” Leighton and 

other staff wondered whether Rattigan might be

“inappropriately under the influence of his Saudi 

counterparts.” Trial Tr. at 57–60 (July 23, 2009). Leighton 

also claimed he heard Rattigan talk about hosting “a fairly 

wild party” attended by several women described as “nurses.”

Id. at 62. According to Leighton, temporary duty personnel 

recounted other similarly raucous events hosted by Rattigan.

Following a short vacation, Leighton returned to OIO’s

Washington Office in January 2002, becoming interim desk 

officer for LEGAT Offices in Pakistan and the Middle East,

including the Riyadh office. Leighton testified that his 

interactions with Rattigan during this time led him to become 

more concerned, especially given the importance of 

Rattigan’s office to the FBI’s mission in light of the 

September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. After consulting his OIO 

supervisors, Leighton documented his concerns in an 

electronic communication, i.e., a memorandum written for 

internal use by FBI agents and other employees.

In his electronic communication, which he began drafting 

in the end of January and completed in March, Leighton 

reported, among other things, (1) that Rattigan occasionally 

wore Saudi national clothing he had received as a gift from 

the Saudi security service, creating the impression he had

“gone native,” (2) that Rattigan’s Saudi colleagues were 

attempting to find him a “suitable wife,” (3) that Rattigan 

hosted wild parties attended by other agents and by female 

“nurses,” a term that might have “be[en] used by . . . Rattigan 

as a euphemism for ‘prostitutes,’ ” (4) that Rattigan and his 

assistant, Abdel-Hafiz, were inattentive to the FBI’s 

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investigation of the September 11 attacks, (5) that Rattigan 

took an extended absence to make a pilgrimage to Mecca 

along with Abdel-Hafiz and their Saudi counterparts during 

which he could be contacted only through the Saudi security 

service, and (6) that Rattigan refused to allow temporary duty 

staff to interact directly with the Saudi security service.

Leighton gave a draft of the electronic communication to 

Pyszczymuka who then returned it (along with suggestions 

made by his assistant) and directed Leighton to address the 

final communication to the attention of the Security 

Division’s Section Chief, Edward Shubert. When

Pyszczymuka received the revised electronic communication 

from Leighton, he forwarded it along to the Security Division

together with a cover memo acknowledging Rattigan’s

pending discrimination complaint against OIO supervisors 

including himself and asking the Division to “peruse the 

[communication] and consider any potential security issues, 

making the appropriate referrals.”

In response to this referral, Shubert reviewed Leighton’s 

electronic communication and decided to initiate a security 

investigation. The investigation was conducted by the 

Division’s Analytical Integration Unit, which, due to staffing 

constraints, obtained two additional investigators from the 

FBI’s Inspection Division. See Rattigan I, 604 F. Supp. 2d at 

44. One of those investigators, Cheryl Tucker, interviewed

sixteen FBI employees previously assigned to the Riyadh 

office, including Leighton, and filed a report concluding that

“the potential risks to FBI security and information, as 

documented by . . . Leighton, are unfounded.” More 

specifically, Tucker found that the information obtained from 

her interviews “failed to support . . . Leighton’s assertions that 

the women described as ‘nurses’ were prostitutes.” Instead, 

she concluded, the women were actual nurses who attended 

parties at diplomatic residences. Tucker also found no support 

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for Leighton’s suspicion that Rattigan’s relationship with 

Saudi intelligence officials revealed foreign influence. After 

conducting its own review of the evidence, the Analytical 

Integration Unit reached the same conclusion, issuing a final 

report finding “no security risk present relative to the issues of 

allegiance, foreign influence, or personal conduct on the part 

of LEGAT Rattigan.” The Unit’s report also indicated that 

Leighton’s assertions regarding Rattigan’s supposed inactivity 

in the FBI’s September 11 investigation “lack[ed] 

corroboration and [were] unfounded.” Accordingly, the 

Security Division closed the investigation.

Rattigan filed suit in 2004, raising several claims of

unlawful discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. In a series 

of rulings, the district court dismissed or granted summary 

judgment to the government as to all claims save one: 

Rattigan’s contention that the FBI retaliated against him “for 

complaining that OIO officials had discriminated against him 

on the basis of his race and national origin” by subjecting him 

to a security clearance investigation. See Rattigan v. Holder

(“Rattigan II”), 636 F. Supp. 2d 89, 90 (D.D.C. 2009)

(summarizing this procedural history). On the eve of trial, the 

government filed a motion to dismiss, arguing for the first 

time that Rattigan’s retaliation claim was nonjusticiable

because, according to the government, it would require the 

jury to second-guess national security judgments committed 

by law to FBI discretion. The district court denied the motion.

See id. at 91, 95. Following trial, the jury returned a verdict 

for Rattigan, and the district court denied the government’s 

post-trial motions.

The government now appeals, focusing primarily on its 

argument that Rattigan’s Title VII claim is nonjusticiable. Our 

review is de novo. See Kaufaman v. Mukasey, 524 F.3d 1334, 

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1337 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (reviewing de novo the district court’s 

dismissal of a complaint on the ground that it challenged a 

decision committed to the Attorney General’s discretion).

II.

As the Supreme Court explained in Department of Navy 

v. Egan, the President as Commander in Chief and head of the 

Executive Branch has constitutional authority “to classify and 

control access to information bearing on national security and 

to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy 

to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give 

that person access to such information.” 484 U.S. 518, 527 

(1988). By Executive Order, the President has delegated that 

authority to heads of executive agencies, including the FBI 

Director. See Exec. Order No. 12,968 § 1.2(b), 60 Fed. Reg. 

40,245, 40,246 (Aug. 2, 1995). Based on eligibility standards 

prescribed in that order, agencies grant security clearances

only where “facts and circumstances indicate access to 

classified information is clearly consistent with the national 

security interests of the United States, and any doubt shall be 

resolved in favor of national security.” Id. § 3.1(b), 60 Fed.

Reg. at 40,250.

Given the Executive’s primacy in national security and 

the discretionary nature of security clearance decisions, courts 

have, absent congressional instruction to the contrary,

carefully avoided intruding into Executive judgments 

concerning who should receive clearance. In Egan, the 

Supreme Court held that the Merit Systems Protection Board

lacked statutory authority to review an agency’s decision to 

deny a newly-hired employee a security clearance even 

though the employee then lost his job. 484 U.S. at 520.

Acknowledging the general presumption favoring review of 

agency decisions, the Court nonetheless stated that this 

proposition “runs aground when it encounters concerns of 

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national security, as in this case, where the grant of security 

clearance to a particular employee, a sensitive and inherently 

discretionary judgment call, is committed by law to the 

appropriate agency of the Executive Branch.” 484 U.S. at 

527. Emphasizing that “no one has a ‘right’ to a security 

clearance” and that denial of clearance is meant only to assess 

whether an individual might someday compromise sensitive

information rather than to “pass[] judgment upon an 

individual’s character,” the Court explained that the decision 

to grant or deny security clearance was essentially an act of 

“[p]redictive judgment” that “must be made by those with the 

necessary expertise in protecting classified information.” Id. 

at 528–29. By contrast, “it is not reasonably possible for an 

outside nonexpert body to review the substance” of the 

agency’s predictive judgment to determine “whether the 

agency should have been able to make the necessary 

affirmative prediction with confidence” or “what constitutes 

an acceptable margin of error in assessing the potential risk.” 

Id. at 529.

Following Egan, courts of appeals have consistently held 

that federal courts, like the administrative board at issue in 

that case, have no authority to review the merits of agency

decisions to withhold, revoke, or suspend security clearances

absent contrary direction from Congress. See El-Ganayni v. 

U.S. Dep’t of Energy, 591 F.3d 176, 182 (3d Cir. 2010)

(citing cases and recognizing the consensus of the circuits 

regarding the scope of Egan). In Ryan v. Reno, we joined 

several circuits in holding that Egan applies to Title VII 

claims and bars judicial resolution of “a discrimination claim 

based on an adverse employment action resulting from an

agency security clearance decision.” 168 F.3d 520, 523 (D.C. 

Cir. 1999). We explained that adjudicating plaintiff’s Title 

VII claim would require the court to evaluate the merits of the 

agency’s security clearance decision. Ryan’s application of 

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Egan follows inexorably from the manner in which the

factfinder resolves Title VII discrimination and retaliation 

claims. Absent evidence of mixed motives, such claims

proceed according to the familiar three-step framework 

established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 

792 (1973), under which (1) the plaintiff must first prove a 

prima facie case of discrimination, (2) if the plaintiff does so, 

then the burden shifts to the defendant “to articulate some 

legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the action in 

question,” and (3) if the defendant meets that burden, the 

plaintiff must show that the defendant’s proffered reasons 

“were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for 

discrimination.” Wiley v. Glassman, 511 F.3d 151, 155 (D.C. 

Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Jones 

v. Bernanke, 557 F.3d 670, 677 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (applying the 

same framework to retaliation claims). As we recognized in 

Ryan, the problem for plaintiffs who allege the discriminatory 

or retaliatory denial or revocation of a security clearance

under the McDonnell Douglas framework is that “a court 

cannot clear the second step of McDonnell Douglas without 

running smack up against Egan.” 168 F.3d at 524. Why? 

Because to determine whether the employer’s proffered 

nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment 

action—i.e., that the plaintiff’s clearance was denied or 

revoked on national security grounds—was in fact pretext for 

discrimination would require the factfinder to evaluate the 

validity of the government’s security concerns. Quoting the 

Ninth Circuit, we explained:

The more valid a reason appears upon evaluation, the 

less likely a court will be to find that reason 

pretextual; the converse is also true. Even when the 

court faces independent evidence of a discriminatory 

motive, it is still necessary to weigh the validity of 

the defendant’s proffered reasons when deciding if 

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they are pretextual. In short, the merit of such 

decisions simply cannot be wholly divorced from a 

determination of whether they are legitimate or 

pretextual.

Id. (quoting Brazil v. U.S. Dep’t of Navy, 66 F.3d 193, 197 

(9th Cir. 1995)).

We reiterated Ryan’s holding in Bennett v. Chertoff, in

which the plaintiff alleged that the Transportation Security 

Administration’s termination of her employment after she 

failed to receive the requisite security clearance was 

discriminatory. 425 F.3d 999 (D.C. Cir. 2005). Finding the 

claim nonjusticiable and responding to plaintiff’s contention 

that the Administration’s security clearance explanation for 

her firing was pretextual, we recognized that “under Ryan, a 

court cannot adjudicate the credibility of that claim” because 

asking the trier of fact to assess the authenticity of the 

agency’s reason would also require it “to evaluate the validity 

of the agency’s security determination.” Id. at 1003 (internal 

citation omitted).

In contrast to the claims raised in Ryan, Bennett, and

Egan itself, Rattigan’s claim implicates neither the denial nor 

revocation of his security clearance nor the loss of 

employment resulting from such action. After all, the FBI left

Rattigan’s clearance in place and he remains employed by 

that agency. Instead, Rattigan argues that his OIO supervisors 

referred him for a security investigation in order to retaliate 

against him because he filed Title VII claims and that this 

referral set in motion a several month long investigation by 

the FBI’s Security Division that caused him serious emotional 

distress and damaged his reputation. For that reason, the 

precise issue presented by this case is one of first impression.

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According to Rattigan, we have no need to reach this 

justiciability issue because the government forfeited that

defense by failing to raise it in a timely fashion before the 

district court. Even though this litigation had stretched on for 

five years, the government did not move to dismiss under 

Egan until the day before trial. In its opinion denying that

motion, the district court reprimanded the government for its 

delay but nonetheless considered the merits because it 

believed that the motion implicated subject matter 

jurisdiction. See Rattigan II, 636 F. Supp. 2d at 90 & n.1.

Arguing that intervening precedent makes clear that the 

government’s justiciability defense is non-jurisdictional, see 

Oryszak v. Sullivan, 576 F.3d 522, 526 (D.C. Cir. 2009), 

Rattigan contends that “[t]he government’s apparent 

submission to judicial review for so many years, and the 

disrespect it showed the judicial process by failing to raise 

this argument earlier, warrants a finding of waiver[,]” 

Appellee’s Br. 25. Although we appreciate the district court’s 

annoyance with the government’s failure to raise its 

justiciability argument earlier, we see no basis for forfeiture

even assuming the argument could be forfeited—a question 

we have no reason to address. See Oryszak, 576 F.3d at 526–

27 (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (contending that “a court must 

decline to adjudicate a nonjusticiable claim even if the 

defendant does not move to dismiss it under Fed. R. Civ. P. 

12(b)(6)”). Not only did the government file its motion in 

accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(2), 

which provides that the defense of failure to state a claim may 

be raised “at trial,” but the district court thoroughly addressed 

the substance of the government’s argument in a published

opinion, see Rattigan II, 636 F. Supp. 2d 89. Accordingly, the 

government’s justiciability argument is properly before us.

To resolve that issue, we must determine whether 

Rattigan’s retaliation claim invited the jury to question the 

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sort of FBI security judgments that Egan, as applied to Title 

VII by Ryan and Bennett, makes unreviewable. We answer 

this question by breaking it down into two components. First, 

we ask exactly which security-clearance-related decisions 

Egan insulates from judicial review. Are all such decisions by 

any agency employee unreviewable, as the government and 

the dissent insist? Or, as Rattigan contends, does Egan

command absolute deference only to security-clearancerelated judgments of agency personnel specifically trained 

and authorized to make them? Neither the Supreme Court in 

Egan nor this court in Bennett or Ryan had to resolve this 

question given that plaintiffs in those cases challenged agency 

actions terminating or withholding employment after security 

clearances were actually denied or revoked. Second, after

identifying the decisionmakers whose judgments the 

factfinder may not question, we assess whether the 

adjudication of Rattigan’s claim subjected those judgments to 

jury scrutiny.

As to the first issue, the district court distinguished 

between employees working in OIO and those working in the 

Security Division because “the Security Division and not the 

OIO, is the FBI entity charged with assuring the loyalty, 

reliability, suitability, and trustworthiness of . . . employees . . 

. who work with, will work with, or have access to sensitive 

or classified FBI information and material.” Id. at 93 (internal 

quotations and alterations omitted). Nothing about Rattigan’s 

claim, the district court explained, required the jury to review

any judgments made by the Security Division. To the 

contrary, the Division determined that Rattigan’s activities 

were “not inconsistent with the needs of national security,” a 

judgment Rattigan “embraces.” Id. As the district court saw it,

Rattigan challenged only OIO’s referral to the Security 

Division—“not the sort of judgment call that ‘is committed by 

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law to the appropriate agency of the Executive Branch.’ ” Id. 

at 94 (quoting Egan, 484 U.S. at 527). 

For its part, the government maintains that non-Security 

Division employees, including OIO officials, are a crucial 

“part of the apparatus by which security clearance 

determinations are made,” and that they exercise expert 

“predictive judgment” when making referral decisions.

Appellant’s Br. 38–39; see also Dissenting Op. at 4. The 

government also points out that the OIO employees involved 

in this case, as Executive Branch officers with security 

clearances, are themselves “encouraged and expected” under 

the President’s Executive Order to “report any information 

that raises doubts as to whether another employee’s continued 

eligibility for access to classified information is clearly 

consistent with the national security.” Exec. Order No. 

12,968, § 6.2(b), 60 Fed. Reg. at 40,253. If that decision to 

report is subjected to judicial scrutiny during Title VII 

litigation, the government asserts, then employees will “be 

seriously chilled in their fulfillment of this obligation.” 

Appellant’s Br. 36; see also Dissenting Op. at 4–5.

We agree with the district court that Egan shields from 

review only those security decisions made by the FBI’s 

Security Division, not the actions of thousands of other FBI 

employees who, like Rattigan’s OIO supervisors, may from 

time to time refer matters to the Division. The Supreme 

Court’s answer to the question presented in Egan rested

principally on the proposition that certain discretionary 

security decisions are, absent congressional direction,

committed to the Executive’s expert judgment. See Egan, 484 

U.S. at 529–30. The Court emphasized that decisions about 

whether to grant or deny security clearance require 

“[p]redictive judgment . . . by those with the necessary 

expertise in protecting classified information.” Id. at 529 

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(emphasis added). Under the Executive Order, such expert 

predictive judgments are made by “appropriately trained 

adjudicative personnel.” § 3.1(b), 60 Fed. Reg. at 40,250. As 

the district court pointed out, at the FBI those “appropriately 

trained” personnel work in the Security Division. By contrast, 

OIO officials have neither the authority nor the training to 

make security clearance decisions. See Rattigan II, 636 F. 

Supp. 2d at 93.

To be sure, as the dissent points out, the Supreme Court 

in Egan did “consistently refer[] to ‘the agency’—not to 

certain employees within an agency—as the decisionmaker 

that may not be second-guessed in security clearances cases.” 

Dissenting Op. at 1–2. But we find nothing exceptional in the 

Court’s choice of words given the “narrow question” before 

it: whether the Merit Systems Protection Board had authority 

to review the merits of an agency’s final decision to deny or 

revoke an employee’s security clearance. Egan, 484 U.S. at 

520. The dissent never suggests that the holding of Egan

dictates the result it advocates in this case of first impression, 

in which the designated agency experts reached a final 

security clearance determination that was favorable to the 

plaintiff but where he alleges that his agency supervisors 

referred him for investigation for an impermissible reason. As 

the Supreme Court itself has cautioned, “where holdings of 

the Court are not at issue” it is “generally undesirable to 

dissect the sentences of the United States Reports as though 

they were the United States Code.” St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. 

Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515 (1993). Needless to say, because 

the same principle applies to the Federal Reporter, we 

similarly decline to attach decisive significance to our own 

references to “the agency” in Ryan and Bennett where, as 

noted above, the issue we face here was not raised.

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In concluding that Egan applies only to the Security 

Division, we fully understand that non-Security Division 

employees play a role in identifying security risks. But the 

government’s justiciability argument, embraced by the 

dissent, asks us to go well beyond Egan’s reasoning, as well 

as its narrow holding. The decision by a non-expert employee 

to refer a colleague for a potential security investigation is 

categorically unlike the predictive judgment made by 

“appropriately trained adjudicative personnel” who make 

security clearance decisions pursuant to delegated Executive 

authority and subject to established adjudicative guidelines

designed to channel their discretion. Exec. Order No. 12,968, 

§ 3.1(b), 60 Fed. Reg. at 40,250; 32 C.F.R. § 147.1–147.15

(setting forth guidelines). Given that nothing in Egan requires 

us to extend its principles beyond employees possessing the 

requisite training and experience, we decline to do so, thus 

preserving to the maximum extent possible Title VII’s 

important protections against workplace discrimination and 

retaliation. Moreover, although the government believes that 

without Egan’s protection, employees outside the Security 

Division will be reluctant to make referrals, we think that 

concern too speculative to extend Egan’s justiciability 

doctrine beyond its core concern.

Having identified the relevant agency decisionmaker for 

our justiciability inquiry, we turn to the second question,

namely, whether the jury, in adjudicating Rattigan’s Title VII 

retaliation claim, was put in the position of reviewing the 

substance of discretionary Security Division decisions. 

According to Rattigan, this question has an easy answer: 

because his security clearance “was not revoked but upheld, 

. . . [t]he jury’s determination that the OIO employees’ actions 

were retaliatory is . . . consistent with the Security Division’s 

ultimate decision that Rattigan was not a security risk.” 

Appellee’s Br. 29–30. The problem with this argument is that 

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it focuses only on the Security Division’s bottom-line 

judgment while overlooking its antecedent decision to initiate 

an investigation. Prior to concluding that Rattigan posed no 

risk to national security, the Division had to determine

whether Leighton’s observations, as presented to the Division

in the electronic communication, were sufficiently serious to 

justify further inquiry. It concluded they were, and such a

threshold decision by the Security Division to investigate is 

surely the kind of judgment Egan commits to Division

discretion. Cf. Becerra v. Dalton, 94 F.3d 145, 149 (4th Cir. 

1996).

Rattigan nowhere disputes that the Security Division’s

decision to investigate is off limits for judicial review. He 

insists, however, that the Division’s decision to launch an 

investigation was not at issue because he never asked the jury 

to question the reasonableness of that investigation. Up to a 

point, Rattigan is correct: nothing about his claim required 

him to attribute retaliatory animus to Security Division

employees, and our review of the record satisfies us that his

presentation to the jury focused on the behavior of OIO

employees only. See, e.g., Trial Tr. at 21 (July 21, 2009) 

(opening statement of counsel for Rattigan). Indeed, the 

district court, consistent with the government’s request, 

instructed the jury that for Rattigan to sustain his retaliation 

claim, he did not have “to prove that the Security Division 

personnel who authorized the investigation were motivated by 

. . . retaliatio[n] . . . if [he] prove[d] . . . that these personnel 

were influenced by the referral provided by OIO personnel, 

and that the stated reason the OIO provided for the referral 

was” pretext for retaliation. Looking at the entire record, 

however, we still see an Egan problem.

Although the district court properly distinguished 

between OIO employees and specially trained Security 

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Division employees, it believed—and we shall say more 

about this later—that the OIO referral alone was not 

actionable under Title VII. As a result, it allowed the jury to 

review the decisions of the Security Division itself. Indeed,

during the course of the trial, the district court expressly 

recognized that Security Division Section Chief Edward 

Shubert had become the relevant “decision-maker.” Trial Tr. 

at 40 (July 27, 2009). For example, in admitting evidence that 

Rattigan had passed a random polygraph examination, the 

court explained that although there was scant reason to 

believe Pyszczymuka should have known about the polygraph 

prior to making the referral because the matter was “just not 

part of his job or part of his Department,” there was reason to 

think Shubert may have known about it, making the evidence 

relevant to establish what Shubert “knows and doesn’t know 

and what went into his consideration, or didn’t go into his 

consideration.” Id. Moreover, consistent with its identification 

of Shubert as the “decision-maker,” the district court made 

liability turn on the Security Division’s decision to 

investigate, instructing the jury that Rattigan had to prove that 

the “defendant initiated the Security Division investigation

because [Rattigan] made allegations of . . . discrimination.”

(emphasis added). Likewise, the verdict form asked the jury 

whether Rattigan “prove[d] . . . that the reason that defendant 

initiated the FBI’s Security Division investigation was to 

retaliate against [Rattigan] for having engaged in protected 

activity . . . .” (emphasis added).

Taken together, the district court’s evidentiary rulings, 

jury instruction, and verdict form invited the jury to look into 

Shubert’s decisionmaking process and assess his reasons for 

authorizing the investigation. According to Rattigan, 

however, the jury had nothing to second-guess because 

Shubert engaged in no independent decisionmaking. Instead, 

“[g]iven the supervisory rank and standing of the biased 

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18

individuals who made the referral,” Rattigan claims, Shubert 

felt he had no choice but to approve an investigation. 

Appellee’s Br. 47. But Shubert testified to the contrary, 

explaining that OIO supervisors have no authority to initiate 

security investigations and that not all referrals lead to such 

investigations. See Trial Tr. at 26, 35 (July 27, 2009) 

(testimony of Edward Shubert). And far from indicating, as 

Rattigan contends, that Shubert simply deferred to 

Pyszczymuka after Pyszczymuka forwarded Leighton’s 

electronic communication, Shubert testified that although he 

conducted no independent factfinding, he reviewed 

Leighton’s observations and decided, based on FBI security 

clearance guidelines, to authorize an investigation. More 

specifically, Shubert testified that Leighton’s communication 

raised concerns about “foreign influence” and that his claim 

that Rattigan and other FBI agents may have cavorted with 

prostitutes raised red flags about “personal conduct.” Id. at 

31–32. Although Shubert based his concern about foreign 

influence on the electronic communication “as a whole,” he

specifically mentioned Leighton’s contention that Saudi 

intelligence officials gave Rattigan gifts and sought to find 

him a “suitable wife,” as well as Leighton’s assertion that 

Rattigan restricted the access of other FBI agents to Saudi 

officials and made those officials his only point of contact 

during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Id. at 31–34.

In short, because Egan bars Rattigan from predicating 

liability on the actions of the Security Division, and because 

the jury, notwithstanding the “influence by nondecisionmakers” instruction, was allowed—indeed invited—

to scrutinize the Division’s decisionmaking, we shall vacate 

the judgment entered in favor of Rattigan.

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III.

Based on the foregoing, the government would have us 

not only set aside the verdict but also order the case 

dismissed. But given our conclusion that challenges to OIO 

referral decisions fall outside Egan, and given that, as we 

shall explain, the OIO referral itself can qualify as a 

materially adverse action under Title VII, Rattigan’s case can 

proceed so long as the jury is not put in the position of 

second-guessing the Security Division. Dismissing the 

complaint is thus unwarranted because it would deprive 

Rattigan of his cause of action due to evidentiary rulings and 

jury instructions we have now concluded were flawed. See, 

e.g., United States v. Science Applications Int’l Corp., 626 

F.3d 1257, 1261 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (vacating the judgment and 

remanding for a new trial because flawed jury instruction 

misstated the standard for scienter under the False Claims 

Act).

We begin with the question of whether the OIO referral 

can qualify as a materially adverse action under Title VII. As 

the Supreme Court recently explained, Title VII’s retaliation 

provision “cover[s] a broad range of employer conduct” that 

extends beyond the statute’s substantive antidiscrimination 

provision. Thompson v. N. Am. Stainless, LP, __U.S.__, 131 

S. Ct. 863, 868 (2011); see also Rochon v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 

1211, 1219 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (holding that the federal 

government faces the same standards of liability for 

retaliation under Title VII as a private employer). In the 

retaliation context, a materially adverse action is one that 

“could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making or 

supporting a charge of discrimination.” Burlington N. & Santa 

Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 67 (2006) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Whether a particular adverse action 

satisfies the materiality threshold is generally a jury question, 

with our role limited to determining whether, viewing the 

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20

evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, a 

reasonable jury could find the action materially adverse. See 

Pardo-Kronemann v. Donovan, 601 F.3d 599, 607 (D.C. Cir. 

2010) (explaining, in the context of claim that reassignment of 

duties was materially adverse, that “whether a particular 

reassignment of duties constitutes an adverse action is 

generally a jury question” (internal quotation marks and 

alterations omitted)). 

Viewing the evidence in this case in the light most 

favorable to Rattigan, we have no doubt that a reasonable jury 

could find that OIO’s security referral itself might “well 

dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a 

charge of discrimination.” White, 548 U.S. at 57. The referral 

alone created the very real possibility not only that Rattigan 

would face a stressful and potentially reputation-damaging 

investigation, but also that the FBI would revoke his security 

clearance and terminate his employment. See, e.g., Trial Tr. at 

82 (July 27, 2009) (testimony of Michael Pyszczymuka) 

(acknowledging that being the subject of a security 

investigation could harm an FBI agent’s career); Trial Tr. at 

53–54 (July 22, 2009) (testimony of Cheryl Tucker) 

(recognizing the career-damaging effect a security 

investigation could have for an agent like Rattigan who was 

involved in the FBI’s sensitive and important inquiry into the 

September 11 attacks). In our view, a reasonable jury could 

conclude that these ominous prospects are more than 

sufficient to deter a reasonable employee from filing a 

discrimination complaint. See Porter v. Shah, 606 F.3d 809, 

818 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (holding that a supervisor’s issuance of a 

negative written interim assessment and performance 

improvement plan constituted materially adverse action 

because, under applicable agency regulations, the negative 

rating assessment and accompanying plan “could expose [the 

plaintiff] to removal, reduction in grade, withholding of 

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21

within grade increase or reassignment” (emphasis added) 

(internal quotation marks omitted)); Velikonja v. Gonzales, 

466 F.3d 122, 124 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (concluding that a lengthy 

disciplinary investigation by the FBI’s Office of 

Responsibility that “placed a cloud over [plaintiff’s] career” 

was materially adverse “[b]ecause a reasonable jury could 

find that the prospect of such an investigation could dissuade 

a reasonable employee from making or supporting a charge of 

discrimination” (emphasis added)); accord Rattigan I, 604 F. 

Supp. 2d at 52 (“[W]hether an action is ‘materially adverse’ is 

determined by whether it holds a deterrent prospect of harm, 

and not by whether the harm comes to pass or whether any 

effects are felt in the present.”).

Moreover, this conclusion depends not at all on the 

actions that the Security Division takes: the possible negative 

repercussions of an OIO referral could deter an employee 

from filing a complaint even though OIO has no control over 

whether the Security Division undertakes an investigation or 

ultimately decides to revoke a security clearance. The 

situation is to some extent analogous to the filing of a 

criminal complaint for retaliatory purposes, which may

qualify as a materially adverse action under Title VII. See 

White, 548 U.S. at 64 (favorably citing a Tenth Circuit 

decision “finding actionable retaliation where employer filed 

false criminal charges against former employee who 

complained about discrimination” (citing Berry v. Stevinson 

Chevrolet, 74 F.3d 980, 984 (10th Cir. 1996))); see also Steele 

v. Schafer, 535 F.3d 689, 696 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (noting that 

“the Supreme Court [has] indicated that a false report to 

government authorities can constitute retaliation,” and 

accordingly finding actionable the filing of a false report to 

the D.C. Office of Unemployment Compensation contesting 

the employee’s unemployment benefits). This is so even 

though it is the prosecutor, not the employer, who decides 

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22

whether to pursue criminal charges after the complaint is 

filed. Like the filing of a criminal complaint, an OIO security 

referral could “deter victims of discrimination from 

complaining to the EEO[],” thus interfering with employees’

“unfettered access to Title VII’s remedial mechanisms.” 

White, 548 U.S. at 68 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Given that OIO’s referral may qualify as a materially 

adverse action and that such an action falls outside Egan, we 

shall remand to give Rattigan an opportunity to prove his 

case. Of course, the district court will have to ensure that the 

jury does not second-guess the Security Division’s decision to 

initiate the investigation. For even if the charge of retaliation 

focuses only on OIO’s referral, the risk remains that unless 

the district court takes precautions, the jury could nonetheless 

second-guess the Security Division’s decision to initiate the 

investigation. To determine whether OIO’s referral rested on 

legitimate security concerns as opposed to retaliatory animus, 

the jury must weigh the strength of the evidence Leighton 

submitted in support of his claim that Rattigan might pose a 

security risk. But weighing the evidence of Rattigan’s 

behavior as reported in Leighton’s electronic communication 

and deciding whether it justified an investigation is also what 

the Security Division did, and under Egan the jury must not 

revisit the Division’s judgment on this point. Cf. Becerra, 94 

F.3d at 149 (“The reasons why a security investigation is 

initiated may very well be the same reasons why the final 

security clearance decision is made.”). Moreover, the risk of 

second-guessing remains despite the Division’s ultimate 

conclusion that Rattigan posed no security threat. The 

standards for deciding whether Leighton’s observations about 

Rattigan merited further inquiry and whether Rattigan’s

security clearance should be revoked were necessarily and 

obviously different, and it is perfectly plausible for the 

Division to have believed that Leighton’s claims warranted an 

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23

investigation yet, following that investigation, to have 

concluded that suspicions about Rattigan were unfounded.

A simple admittedly stylized hypothetical illustrates the 

potential problem. Suppose OIO’s security referral had raised

a single allegation: that Rattigan occasionally wore Saudi 

national clothing while in the U.S. embassy. Suppose also that 

Shubert reviewed this allegation, decided it raised questions

about foreign influence, and initiated an investigation. And 

suppose finally that the investigation, though verifying that 

Rattigan had in fact worn Saudi clothing, concluded that the 

concerns about him were unfounded because no other 

evidence suggested inappropriate foreign influence. In 

response to a Title VII claim by Rattigan contending that 

OIO’s referral was retaliatory, OIO officials would 

presumably argue that the referral was motivated by a 

legitimate non-retaliatory reason—namely, their concern that 

Rattigan’s office attire signaled that he might represent a 

national security risk. To assess whether that asserted reason 

was pretextual under McDonnell Douglas, the jury would be 

asked, either expressly or impliedly, to evaluate its validity. 

See Ryan, 168 F.3d at 524 (“ ‘Even when the court faces 

independent evidence of a discriminatory motive, it is still 

necessary to weigh the validity of the defendant’s proffered 

reasons when deciding if they are pretextual.’ ” (quoting 

Brazil, 66 F.3d at 197)). But that concern—that Rattigan’s 

wearing of Saudi clothing was suspicious—was the very 

reason (in the hypothetical) the Security Division launched its 

investigation. Therefore, putting the jury in a position of 

weighing whether the wearing of Saudi clothing raised a 

legitimate national security concern could, contrary to Egan, 

invite it to question the Security Division’s judgment that 

Rattigan’s behavior merited further inquiry.

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24

To be sure, when the jury evaluates the motives behind a 

security referral, it sits in a very different position than do 

Security Division officials reviewing allegations and deciding 

whether to investigate. Whereas such officials will frequently 

have to make investigation decisions based on uncorroborated 

and acontextual allegations received from non-Security 

Division employees, the plaintiff may be able to introduce 

evidence to convince the jury that those employees included 

in their referral accusations that they knew or should have 

known were false or misleading. Such evidence, if credited,

will provide compelling reasons for the factfinder to conclude

that the employees’ asserted security reasons for the referral 

were pretextual without ever calling into doubt any Security 

Division judgment. See Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 

520 F.3d 490, 495 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (explaining that one way 

an employee may show that an employer’s stated reason for 

an action was pretextual is to “attempt to demonstrate that the 

employer is making up or lying about the underlying facts that 

formed the predicate for the [action]”).

Thus, although Title VII challenges to security referrals 

could in some circumstances invite the jury to question 

Security Division judgments about the seriousness of security 

concerns, that is far from inevitable. Ultimately, it falls to the 

district court to guard against this risk of violating Egan. To 

do so, the district court could, for example, instruct the jury to

assume that the reasons the Division gave for commencing an 

investigation—provided those reasons did not rest on false or 

misleading allegations—fully justified undertaking the

investigation. We recognize that limitations required to 

ensure compliance with Egan may make it impossible for 

some plaintiffs to mount evidence sufficient to allow a 

reasonable jury to believe retaliation had occurred. In such 

cases, the district court will need to enter judgment for the 

government. Cf. In re Sealed Case, 494 F.3d 139, 144–45

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25

(D.C. Cir. 2007) (recognizing in state secrets context that 

where plaintiff is unable to establish prima facie case without 

the use of privileged information, lack of evidence requires 

dismissal).

Here, whether Rattigan has adduced sufficient evidence 

for his claim to proceed without running into Egan is a 

question we leave in the district court’s able hands. Having 

presided over the trial and several years of motions practice, 

the district court is in the best position to decide whether, 

given the record and any cautionary instructions and 

evidentiary rulings it believes necessary, Rattigan’s case can 

go forward without putting the jury in the position of secondguessing the Security Division. See Jones, 557 F.3d at 681 

(“Given the state of the record and the factual intricacies 

intertwined with [plaintiff’s] allegations, we are unwilling to 

delve into questions that the district court did not address.” 

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)).

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the judgment and

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, dissenting: In Department 

of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988), the Supreme Court 

held that the Navy’s decision to deny Egan a security 

clearance could not be reviewed in the course of his personnel 

action against the Navy. Justice Blackmun’s opinion for the 

Court reasoned that “the protection of classified information 

must be committed to the broad discretion of the agency 

responsible, and this must include broad discretion to 

determine who may have access to it.” Id. at 529. The Egan 

Court thus precluded agency employees such as Egan from 

pursuing personnel actions against their agency employers 

when doing so would entail second-guessing the agency’s 

security clearance decision. The Court recognized that 

Congress could override the presumption of unreviewability 

that attached to security clearance decisions, but it said that 

Congress had not done so with respect to personnel suits like 

Egan’s. See id. at 530. 

The majority opinion here, however, reads Egan more 

narrowly. Under the majority opinion, security clearance 

decisions are committed not “to the broad discretion of the 

agency responsible,” id. at 529, but only to some agency 

employees who possess the “requisite training and expertise.” 

Maj. Op. at 15. Under the majority opinion’s scheme, courts 

may not review the decisions of agency employees who 

initiate investigations or grant, deny, or revoke clearances, but 

courts may review the decisions of agency employees who 

report security risks. The majority opinion’s slicing and 

dicing of the security clearance process into reviewable and 

unreviewable portions is nowhere to be found in Egan, and 

does not reflect the essential role that the reporting of security 

risks plays in the maintenance of national security. 

* * * 

 

 To begin with, contrary to the majority opinion’s 

approach, the Supreme Court in Egan consistently referred to 

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2 

“the agency” – not to certain employees within an agency – as 

the decisionmaker that may not be second-guessed in security 

clearance cases. Consider the following from Egan: 

 “[T]he grant of security clearance to a particular 

employee . . . is committed by law to the appropriate 

agency of the Executive Branch.” Egan, 484 U.S. at 

527. 

 “[C]ertain civilian agencies . . . were entrusted with 

. . . protecting . . . information bearing on national 

security.” Id. at 527-28. 

 “Presidents . . . have sought to protect sensitive 

information . . . by delegating this responsibility to the 

heads of agencies.” Id. at 528. 

 “Certainly, it is not reasonably possible for an outside 

nonexpert body to review the substance of such a 

judgment and to decide whether the agency should 

have been able to make the necessary affirmative 

prediction with confidence.” Id. at 529. 

 “[A]n agency head . . . should have the final say in 

deciding whether to repose his trust in an employee 

who has access to [classified] information.” Id.

 “[T]he Senate and House Committees . . . gave no 

indication that an agency’s security-clearance 

determination was now to be subject to review.” Id. at 

531 n.6. 

 “Placing the burden on the Government” would 

involve “second-guessing the agency’s national 

security determinations.” Id. at 531. 

 In the face of the recurring “agency” theme in Egan, the 

majority opinion here concludes that Egan protects only the 

actions of certain agency employees. The majority opinion 

relies on a single sentence in Egan that mentions “those with 

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3 

the necessary expertise in protecting classified information.” 

Egan, 484 U.S. at 529. But in that sentence, the Egan Court 

was simply contrasting the expertise of agencies with that of 

outside reviewing bodies, not implying that courts should 

draw a reviewability line based on which members of an 

agency possessed certain amounts of expertise. The full quote 

from Egan makes that clear: 

Predictive judgment of this kind must be made by those 

with the necessary expertise in protecting classified 

information. For reasons too obvious to call for enlarged 

discussion, the protection of classified information must 

be committed to the broad discretion of the agency

responsible, and this must include broad discretion to 

determine who may have access to it. Certainly, it is not 

reasonably possible for an outside nonexpert body to 

review the substance of such a judgment and to decide 

whether the agency should have been able to make the 

necessary affirmative prediction with confidence. 

Id. (citations, alterations, and internal quotation marks 

omitted) (emphasis added). 

 Nothing in Egan’s language suggests that the Supreme 

Court was only barring review of the security clearance 

actions of “employees possessing the requisite training and 

experience,” as the majority opinion here contends. Maj. Op. 

at 15. Nor have this Court’s decisions applying Egan drawn 

the line newly drawn in the majority opinion. Following the 

Supreme Court’s lead, we have referred to the 

decisionmaking process of the agency as a whole, not to 

certain parts of an agency, in employment discrimination 

cases involving security clearance decisions. See, e.g., 

Bennett v. Chertoff, 425 F.3d 999, 1003 (D.C. Cir. 2005) 

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4 

(“trier of fact” may not “evaluate the validity of the agency’s 

security determination”); Ryan v. Reno, 168 F.3d 520, 523 

(D.C. Cir. 1999) (“Egan applies in a Title VII action to 

preclude . . . a discrimination claim . . . resulting from an 

agency security clearance decision”). 

 Moreover, the Supreme Court in Egan protected the 

security clearance process as a whole. The Court did not 

suggest that courts could review distinct parts of that process. 

The majority opinion here, however, says that only the 

initiation of security clearance investigations and the grant, 

denial, or revocation of clearances are within the Egan rule. 

In the majority opinion’s view, the reporting of security risks 

is not within the Egan rule. I do not find that distinction in 

Egan. Nor do I think it makes much sense. Investigations 

and revocations of security clearances will often be prompted 

by reports of misconduct. Reports of misconduct are an 

essential part of the overall process of maintaining national 

security and preventing those who may be security risks from 

accessing sensitive government information. Egan protects 

the front end of the security clearance process – including 

reports of possible security risks – as much as it protects the 

back end. 

 One powerful indication that the reporting of security 

risks is important to national security and falls within the 

Egan rule is that the President himself has required such 

reporting. In an executive order issued by President Clinton 

and still in effect, all federal employees with security 

clearances must make a predictive judgment about what 

constitutes suspicious behavior and report any such behavior 

for investigation: “Employees are encouraged and expected 

to report any information that raises doubts as to whether 

another employee’s continued eligibility for access to 

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5 

classified information is clearly consistent with the national 

security.” Exec. Order No. 12,968, § 6.2(b), 60 Fed. Reg. 

40,245, 40,253 (Aug. 2, 1995). Egan recognized that the 

“authority to protect such [national security] information falls 

on the President as head of the Executive Branch and as 

Commander in Chief.” Egan, 484 U.S. at 527. The Egan rule 

thus covers reports made under President Clinton’s executive 

order. See id. at 527-30. The majority opinion, however, 

would allow courts to second-guess the decisions of agency 

employees who report security risks under President Clinton’s 

executive order. I cannot square that with Egan. 

I appreciate and share the majority opinion’s concern 

about deterring false or wrongful reports that in fact stem 

from a discriminatory motive. But there are a host of 

sanctions that deter an agency employee from engaging in 

such behavior. See, e.g., 71 Fed. Reg. 64,562, 64,563 (Nov. 

2, 2006) (Department of Justice “retains the right, where 

appropriate, to discipline an employee for conduct that is 

inconsistent with Federal Antidiscrimination and 

Whistleblower Protection Laws up to and including 

removal”). And in any event, it is not for us to adjust the rule 

set forth in Egan; that’s a decision for the Supreme Court or 

Congress. 

 The majority opinion’s approach not only causes tension 

with the Supreme Court’s decision in Egan and this Court’s 

precedents, but also will create significant practical 

difficulties. I expect that district courts will find it quite 

difficult to navigate the instructions set forth in Part III of the 

majority opinion. Egan set forth a simple default rule for 

courts to follow in the absence of congressional direction 

otherwise. The complicated process ushered in by the 

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6 

majority opinion does not comport with the clarity of Egan, in 

my respectful judgment. 

* * * 

 The rule that the Supreme Court announced in Egan

applies “unless Congress specifically has provided 

otherwise.” 484 U.S. at 530. If Congress wishes to re-strike 

the balance between personnel and employment 

discrimination laws on the one hand and national security on 

the other, it is free to do so – either broadening or narrowing 

the scope of the protection for agencies’ security clearance 

decisions. Until Congress does so, however, I would apply 

Egan according to its terms. Here, Rattigan claims that FBI 

officials improperly decided to report him to security 

clearance investigators. Under Egan, we cannot second-guess 

the FBI’s decision. For that reason, Rattigan’s suit faces an 

insurmountable bar, and we must dismiss it. 

I respectfully dissent. 

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