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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 January 8, 2016 Decided May 20, 2016 

No. 15-5034 

PRINCE JOHNSON, 

APPELLANT

v. 

THOMAS E. PEREZ, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:11-cv-01832) 

Rani Rolston argued the cause for appellant. On the brief 

was Alan Lescht. 

Damon W. Taaffe, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Vincent H. 

Cohen, Jr., Acting U.S. Attorney, and R. Craig Lawrence, 

Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

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 PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Prince Johnson, an African 

American temporary employee of the U.S. Department of 

Labor, sued the Department, claiming that it dismissed him 

from his position as a Veterans Employment Specialist 

because of his race in violation of Title VII. The district court 

saw grounds to doubt the Department’s stated justifications 

for Johnson’s dismissal, but granted summary judgment to the 

Department for want of evidence of racial discrimination. We 

affirm on the slightly different ground that, on the evidentiary 

record, no reasonable juror could find that the Department’s 

stated, nondiscriminatory reasons for dismissing Johnson 

were not its real reasons. 

I.

In April 2006, the Department of Labor hired Johnson as 

a Veterans Employment Specialist within the Veterans 

Employment and Training Services (VETS) division.1

 The 

Director of Operations and Programs, Gordon Burke, 

recruited Johnson, a former Army Captain, and hired him into 

a noncompetitive position for qualified veterans with servicerelated disabilities. See 5 U.S.C. § 3112; 5 C.F.R. § 

316.402(b)(4). The post was a temporary one with a 

possibility of permanent employment. 5 U.S.C. § 3112; 5 

C.F.R. § 316.402(b)(4). Pamela Langley, the Division Chief 

of the Employment and Training Programs Division within 

VETS, also interviewed Johnson and reviewed his 

application. Langley then became Johnson’s direct 

 

1

 The statement of facts is taken from the record evidence submitted 

in support of the parties’ summary judgment briefing. Some of the 

facts reported here are disputed, but our obligation at the summary 

judgment stage is to view all facts in the light most favorable to the 

nonmoving party, here the plaintiff. Facts unfavorable to him that 

are included are those that Johnson has not factually controverted. 

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supervisor. Director Burke, like Johnson, is African 

American, and Division Chief Langley is white.

Johnson’s career at VETS was short lived. He held the 

position on a temporary basis, with an extension, for 

approximately six months before Director Burke terminated 

his appointment. To Johnson, the new job was a frustrating 

disappointment. Johnson testified at his deposition that he 

had assumed he would be given adequate time and training to 

learn the skills the position required; instead, he felt, he was 

“set up to fail.” J.A. 192. His supervisors struck him as 

unfriendly and unreceptive. Johnson’s coworkers told a 

similar story: They told Johnson or averred in connection 

with discovery in this case that they observed supervisors talk 

down to Johnson, yell at him, and call him “stupid” or 

“useless.” J.A. 293, 298. One co-worker found Division 

Chief Langley “demeaning” in her interactions with Johnson, 

J.A. 45, another described a general attitude of disrespect 

toward minority employees within the office, and another 

observed instances in which Langley or Patrick Hecker, the 

VETS “Jobs for Veterans” State Grants Lead and a white 

male, yelled at Johnson. 

 Johnson’s primary responsibility was to assist Hecker to 

create and update spreadsheets tracking information in the 

“Jobs for Veterans” grants program that VETS administered. 

He also worked with Ed Davin, a Performance Specialist on 

contract to VETS. Burke, Langley, Hecker, and Davin all 

perceived Johnson as struggling to complete the tasks 

assigned to him. According to their accounts, they clarified 

what was expected, identified specific deficiencies, and 

explained how he could correct them. They authorized 

Johnson to spend some time at a VETS State Local Office in 

Maryland to learn more about how the program worked in 

practice, and they arranged for VETS to sponsor Johnson for 

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training to upgrade his relevant skills. In the face of some 

disagreement from Johnson about which courses would be 

most appropriate, the supervisors authorized him to take an 

Excel training course and sent him to a training conference in 

Chicago. 

Despite what management characterized as efforts to 

make Johnson’s employment work out, in October 2006, 

Division Chief Langley recommended to Director Burke that 

Johnson’s probationary appointment be terminated. As 

Langley recounts the situation, her own observations of 

Johnson’s work and the reports of his direct supervisors 

persuaded her that he should not remain in the position. 

Langley notified Johnson that she was going to recommend 

termination of his employment at VETS for failure to perform 

satisfactorily and for his “unacceptable attitude” when 

advised of errors in his work product. J.A. 221. Burke agreed 

with Langley’s recommendation. He recounted that he 

terminated Johnson “based on [his] own dissatisfaction with 

[Johnson’s] argumentative demeanor and his reported lack of 

performance and argumentative character.” J.A. 207. In the 

Termination Memorandum Burke issued to Johnson, he 

outlined the requirements of Johnson’s position and then 

listed the ways in which Johnson’s performance had been 

deficient: He had “not completed satisfactorily” the projects 

he had been assigned and had shown an “argumentative 

response and demeanor” when confronted with his poor work. 

J.A. 473. 

After exhausting his administrative remedies, Johnson 

brought suit in district court, alleging that he was subjected to 

a hostile work environment based on his race, and that his 

termination was racially discriminatory in violation of Title 

VII. Following discovery, the district court granted summary 

judgment to the government on both claims. Johnson v. 

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Perez, 66 F. Supp. 3d 30, 45-46 (D.D.C. 2014). The 

Department moved this court for summary affirmance. The 

court granted the Department’s motion in part, affirming 

judgment on the hostile work environment claim on the 

ground that, as a matter of law, the incidents Johnson 

identified in support of that claim “were not ‘sufficiently 

severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's 

employment and create an abusive working environment.’” 

Johnson v. Perez, No. 15-5034, 2015 WL 5210265 (D.C. Cir. 

July 1, 2015) (per curiam) (quoting Harris v. Forklift Sys., 

Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21 (1993)). The panel denied summary 

affirmance as to the discriminatory discharge claim, id., 

which was then calendared for full briefing and argument to 

this panel. 

II.

We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment 

de novo. Calhoun v. Johnson, 632 F.3d 1259, 1261 (D.C. Cir. 

2011). By the time a party files a summary judgment motion, 

all parties should have had the opportunity to investigate the 

case thoroughly and should have done so. In making or 

opposing a summary judgment motion, a party may no longer 

rely on the hope of new testimony or additional documents 

other than what it put before the court. Each party’s hand is 

dealt. The task of the court is to review the factual material 

the parties present in support of and opposition to the motion, 

in light of the parties’ legal claims and defenses, and assess 

whether the record contains disputes calling for resolution by 

a factfinder. In considering a motion for summary judgment, 

the court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

nonmoving party (here, Johnson) and draws all reasonable 

inferences in his favor. Id. The court may not make 

credibility determinations or otherwise weigh the evidence. 

Id. The court may not, for example, believe one witness over 

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another if both witnesses observed the same event in 

materially different ways. But if one party presents relevant 

evidence that another party does not call into question 

factually, the court must accept the uncontroverted fact. 

Summary judgment is appropriate only if “there is no 

genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P.

56(a). That can be the case when, for example, the parties 

agree about the facts—what happened—and the court accepts 

the movant’s view of the legal implications of those facts, or, 

as in this case, when a putatively disputed body of evidentiary 

material could not, even assuming a sympathetic factfinder, 

reasonably support a finding crucial to the nonmoving party’s 

legal position. A dispute about a material fact is “‘genuine’ . . 

. if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a 

verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 

Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). In that circumstance, the 

summary judgment motion must be denied. Id. A moving 

party is entitled to judgment, however, if the nonmoving party 

“fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence 

of an element essential to that party’s case, and on which that 

party will bear the burden of proof at trial.” Celotex Corp. v. 

Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). 

Title VII prohibits federal agencies from discriminating 

against their employees on the basis of race, color, religion, 

sex, or national origin. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a). Federal 

employees’ Title VII claims, although authorized by a 

separate statutory section, are analyzed in the same way as 

Title VII claims against private employers. See, e.g., Borgo v. 

Goldin, 204 F.3d 251, 255 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Under the 

burden-shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas, a Title VII 

plaintiff seeking to prove disparate treatment through indirect, 

circumstantial evidence “must first establish a prima facie

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case of prohibited discrimination.” Aka v. Wash. Hosp. Ctr., 

156 F.3d 1284, 1288 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (en banc); see 

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 

(1973). Once the plaintiff has done so, the burden then shifts 

to the defendant to “articulate legitimate, nondiscriminatory 

reasons for the challenged employment decision.” Aka, 156 

F.3d at 1288. 

The Department’s position is that it terminated Johnson 

because his performance was deficient and his demeanor was 

argumentative in response to supervisor feedback. At 

summary judgment, when an employer has offered a 

legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the challenged 

termination, as the Department has done in this case, the 

court’s inquiry turns to “one central question: Has the 

employee produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury 

to find that the employer’s asserted non-discriminatory reason 

was not the actual reason and that the employer intentionally 

discriminated against the employee on the basis of race, color, 

religion, sex, or national origin?” Brady v. Office of the 

Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008). In the 

posture in which this case comes to us, our focus is on 

whether a jury, looking at the record evidence and drawing all 

inferences in Johnson’s favor, could conclude that Johnson’s 

race was “a motivating factor” for the discharge. 42 U.S.C. § 

2000e-2(m). 

Johnson has failed to identify record evidence from 

which a reasonable jury could conclude that race played a role 

in his discharge. Had Johnson been able to show that Burke 

gave conflicting justifications for his recommendation, or that 

the reasons he gave were not credible based on the underlying 

facts of Johnson’s job performance, Johnson might have 

raised a material factual dispute. For example, evidence that 

similarly-situated, non-black employees with comparable 

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performance deficits were not fired was what sufficed in 

Wheeler v. Georgetown University Hospital, 812 F.3d 1109, 

1115 (D.C. Cir. 2016), to create a triable factual dispute about 

the employer’s assertedly nondiscriminatory reliance on 

plaintiff’s poor job performance. In Ridout v. JBS USA, LLC, 

716 F.3d 1079, 1084 (8th Cir. 2013), plaintiff’s evidence that 

he was meeting his employer’s expectations up to the time of 

termination, and that the employer’s response to his alleged 

insubordination was unduly harsh when measured under the 

employer’s own general policy and practice of responding to 

such problems, sufficed to create material factual disputes 

about the employer’s invocation of performance and behavior 

problems. And in the case perhaps most akin to this one, 

White v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 533 F.3d 381, 394-95 (6th 

Cir. 2008), evidence that plaintiff’s educational and 

experiential qualifications were superior to those of the 

candidate offered the promotion plaintiff sought provided 

context for the employer’s reliance on an “inherently 

subjective determination” of applicant’s “aggressive” 

interview demeanor—a factor “easily susceptible to 

manipulation”—and sufficed to create a material factual 

dispute whether the employer’s assertions were a pretext for 

racial discrimination. This record, however, does not present 

evidence from which a reasonable jury could find either that 

Johnson’s job performance was better than the Department 

claims, or that his supervisors’ stated concerns about 

Johnson’s unresponsiveness to constructive criticism are 

unworthy of credence. 

The Termination Memorandum Burke issued to Johnson 

explained that he recommended dismissal because Johnson 

had failed to “[m]aintain accountability over projects 

commensurate with [his] level of responsibility,” had been 

unable “to accomplish routine tasks on a reoccurring [sic] 

basis under [his] own initiative,” and had not “[i]nterface[d] 

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positively with fellow staff members and [his] supervisor.” 

J.A. 473. Burke gave no conflicting justifications for his 

decision. In ensuing explanations, Burke sometimes 

emphasized one reason more than the others, but he gave no 

contrary account of Johnson’s job performance, nor any other, 

conflicting reason. 

All of the record evidence memorializing Burke’s 

justifications for terminating Johnson is consistent. The 

record of Burke’s interview with an Equal Employment 

Opportunity Counselor, Burke’s affidavits of April 2007 and 

August 2007, and Burke’s July 2012 deposition reflect a 

decision based on Johnson’s failure to do the job proficiently 

and his resistance to feedback when his supervisors tried to 

work with him to improve. In an interview with an Equal 

Employment Opportunity Counselor, Burke explained that 

“Johnson [could not] do the work.” J.A. 482. In an affidavit 

dating from April 2007, Burke explained both that Johnson 

had been unable to complete the assigned work and that 

Burke had been dissatisfied with Johnson’s demeanor. In an 

August 2007 affidavit, Burke again noted Johnson’s 

argumentative and disruptive behavior with supervisors. 

Finally, in his July 2012 deposition, Burke explained, 

“Johnson was terminated because he could not perform the 

requirements of the job position and because of his inability to 

get along with peers and superiors characterized by an 

argumentative demeanor.” J.A. 98. 

Johnson attempts to show contradiction by pointing to the 

Department’s answer to Johnson’s complaint, which admitted 

that “Mr. Burke stated that he terminated Mr. Johnson to 

support the supervisor and because Mr. Johnson could not 

perform the work,” but denied that those statements were 

conflicting. J.A. 27. Johnson sees a conflict between Burke’s 

two bases but, as the district court noted, “it stands to reason 

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that a part of Burke’s support for Johnson’s supervisor 

(Langley) might very well be support for her assessment that 

Johnson was unable to do the work required for his position in 

a timely fashion and without errors.” Johnson, 66 F. Supp. 3d 

at 39. There is no contradiction between acting in support of 

another manager’s assessment of an employee under her 

supervision and acting based on the factual accuracy of that 

assessment. 

Nor is there any evidence calling into question the factual 

basis for Burke’s conclusion that Johnson’s job performance 

was inadequate. Johnson attempts to show that he performed 

well at his job and that he did not have an argumentative 

demeanor. Neither attempt to call Burke’s justifications into 

question raises a genuine issue of material fact. 

First, although there is record evidence that Johnson 

performed well in some areas, there is no evidence 

contradicting Burke’s conclusion that Johnson could not 

perform his assigned tasks at the level expected of someone in 

his role. Johnson’s evidence consists of (1) statements of his 

non-supervisory colleagues, Angela Freeman and Loretta 

Alston; and (2) an affidavit of team leader Hecker. None of 

those witnesses’ accounts raises a material factual dispute 

about Burke’s justifications. 

The accounts of Johnson’s colleagues, Freeman and 

Alston, fail materially to dispute Burke’s justifications. 

Angela Freeman, a Management Analyst and the leader of a 

team that worked with Johnson’s, averred, “Given my grade I 

was never in the position to assign Mr. Johnson work, 

however as [stated] above he and I often teamed up [to] 

complete various projects within the agency. The instances in 

which Mr. Johnson assisted me with the completion of a 

project I observed his work to [be] excellent and extremely 

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timely in manner.” J.A. 298. Because Freeman never 

supervised or even saw the work that Johnson did on his own, 

her statements cannot call into question Burke’s conclusion 

that Johnson was not sufficiently accurate, timely, and 

accountable for his assigned tasks. 

Loretta Alston, also a Management Analyst and another 

of Johnson’s co-workers, testified “I don’t know” how well 

Johnson did his job. J.A. 35. But she said that when Johnson 

showed her “how to do the spreadsheets” he “was very 

competent.” J.A. 36. Like Freeman, Alston was not in a 

position to judge how quickly or accurately Johnson 

performed on the tasks that the program’s management 

assigned to him. That Johnson appeared competent to Alston 

while he trained her does not call into question Burke’s 

conclusion that Johnson persistently failed, in Burke’s own 

view and that of Johnson’s other supervisors, to complete his 

work without error or delay. 

Finally, the affidavit of team leader Hecker, with whom 

Johnson was assigned to work directly, supports Burke’s 

conclusions without contradiction. Hecker noted that Johnson 

“worked well when assigned to coordinate and interact with 

others to complete an assignment.” J.A. 231. “[H]owever,” 

Hecker stated, “the majority of the work was individual work 

and involved information or data which had to be entered into 

spreadsheets or other automated and internet based systems. . 

. . Often the spreadsheets that [Johnson] created or modified 

contained easily identified errors when reviewed.” Id. 

Hecker also noted Johnson’s failure to complete projects on 

deadline, id. at 231-32, and his lack of the “knowledge or 

organizational skills required of the position,” id. at 231. 

Hecker’s affidavit is fully consistent with Burke’s conclusion 

that Johnson was unable to complete his work on his own. 

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Nor has Johnson presented any evidence calling into 

question Burke’s conclusion that Johnson was argumentative 

in his interactions with his supervisors. The accounts of 

Johnson’s supervisors support Burke’s conclusion. Hecker, 

who had a quasi-supervisory relationship to Johnson, averred 

that when he tried to bring Johnson’s “marginal work” to his 

attention, Johnson “would become defensive.” J.A. 232. 

Johnson’s first-line supervisor, Langley, also found Johnson 

argumentative. Langley testified: “It seemed to me that at 

times he was argumentative, particularly when I requested 

that he change something or . . . when I identified that there 

was a deficiency in what he had provided me, he would 

become argumentative in responding . . . . So in that way he 

was argumentative. He didn’t seem to accept criticism of his 

work, constructive criticism of his work.” J.A. 124-25. 

That Burke in the internal EEO process described 

Johnson as a “good guy” who got along well with his 

colleagues, J.A. 482, does not contradict Burke’s conclusion 

that Johnson dealt poorly with criticism of his work and 

responded defensively and argumentatively. In Burke’s own 

interactions with Johnson, Burke recounted, Johnson “was 

argumentative with [him] on three occasions where [Johnson] 

was actually in [Burke’s] office to discuss performance.” J.A. 

99. 

Critically, the evidence Johnson puts forward in an effort 

to call into question Burke’s justification comes from 

colleagues who provide no reason to believe that they were 

Johnson’s supervisors, were in a position to assess his work 

product, or had firsthand experience trying to give Johnson 

feedback on his work. Johnson’s colleagues Alston, Jenel 

Turner, and Linda Chambers all averred that they never saw 

Johnson being argumentative at work. But Burke did not 

terminate Johnson on the ground that Johnson was generally 

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argumentative in the office or failed to get along with his 

office peers; there is no dispute that Johnson was affable and 

agreeable to his peers at work. See, e.g., J.A. 482. Rather, 

Burke’s justification was the compound difficulty that 

Johnson’s work was deficient and that he reacted with an 

“argumentative response and demeanor” when supervisors 

sought to address his work deficiencies. J.A. 473. The 

accounts of his colleagues, who did not interact with Johnson 

in a supervisory relationship or purport to have observed such 

interactions, do not address the quality of his work and do not 

suffice to controvert the testimony of his supervisors so as to 

create a genuine factual dispute whether Johnson was 

argumentative and defensive when confronted with feedback. 

In sum, Johnson has not presented evidence from which a 

reasonable jury could conclude that the nondiscriminatory 

reasons Burke gave for terminating Johnson’s employment 

were not his real reasons. The record evidence does not show 

that Burke gave conflicting justifications or that Burke’s 

justifications were unsupported by the underlying facts of 

Johnson’s employment. Johnson rests his case on a pretext 

theory and has not identified other types of evidence—such as 

direct evidence, evidence of similarly-situated employees who 

were treated better than he was, or other forms of 

circumstantial evidence—tending to show that race was a 

motivating factor. 

Because the record could not support a finding that the 

Department’s justifications for terminating Johnson were 

pretext, the Department is entitled to summary judgment. 

III.

Finally, we offer brief clarification on three points of 

potential confusion. First, it is somewhat unusual for a court 

to find—as the district court did here—that there is a triable 

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issue as to pretext, but no triable issue as to discrimination. 

The district court found that there was “arguably a genuine 

dispute of fact about Plaintiff’s job performance and 

workplace demeanor and, thus, whether Defendant’s 

proffered reasons for terminating Johnson were pretextual.” 

Johnson, 66 F. Supp. 3d at 41. The court nonetheless granted 

summary judgment to the Department on the ground that 

Johnson had not introduced evidence that the employer’s 

potentially pretextual reasons were a mask for racial 

discrimination. Id. To be sure, some summary judgment 

records—including, in the district court’s view, this one—

would permit a jury to find that an employer’s reasons are 

false, yet could not support a reasonable inference of 

discrimination. See generally St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 

509 U.S. 502, 508-09 (1993) (sustaining determination that 

defendants’ proffered reasons were not the real reasons for the 

challenged demotion and discharge, but that plaintiff failed to 

show racial motivation). The legal permissibility of such a 

disposition, however, should not be taken to suggest that a 

successful showing of pretext, without more, is necessarily 

inadequate to support an inference of unlawful racial 

discrimination. “In an appropriate case, ‘[t]he factfinder’s 

disbelief of the reasons put forward by the defendant’ will 

allow it to infer intentional discrimination.” Aka, 156 F.3d at 

1294 (quoting St. Mary’s Honor Ctr., 509 U.S. at 511). In 

such a case, “[n]o additional proof of discrimination is 

required.” St. Mary’s Honor Ctr., 509 U.S. at 511 (quoting 

Hicks v. St. Mary’s Honor Ctr., 970 F.2d 487, 493 (8th Cir. 

1992)) (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). 

Neither the district court’s opinion nor ours should be read to 

suggest otherwise. 

Second, in the course of explaining that Johnson had 

failed to show that Burke’s proffered reasons for firing 

Johnson were contradictory, the district court noted that 

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Johnson’s only evidence was his own testimony that Burke 

had originally claimed he was firing Johnson to support 

Langley. In addition to rejecting that testimony for the reason 

we cited above—it failed to show any inconsistency—the 

court stated that “[s]uch self-serving testimony is insufficient 

to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether an 

employer’s proffered reason for termination was pretextual.” 

Johnson, 66 F. Supp. 3d at 39. Relying on earlier district 

court opinions, the district judge stated that “[s]elf-serving 

testimony does not create genuine issues of material fact, 

especially where that very testimony suggests that 

corroborating evidence should be readily available [but is 

absent].” Johnson, 66 F. Supp. 3d at 39. But as we have 

explained since the earlier district court decisions, “there is no 

rule of law that the testimony of a discrimination plaintiff, 

standing alone, can never make out a case of discrimination 

that could withstand a summary judgment motion.” Desmond 

v. Mukasey, 530 F.3d 944, 964 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (quoting 

George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 414 (D.C. Cir. 2005)) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). After all, evidence a party 

proffers in support of its cause will usually, in some sense, be 

“self-serving.” It is nonetheless beyond question as a general 

proposition that parties, like other fact witnesses, are legally 

competent to give material testimony. Indeed, in many kinds 

of cases, parties are the key, or even sole, witnesses. To the 

extent the testimony of a witness who is also a party may be 

impaired by party self-interest, it is ordinarily the role of the 

jury—not the court on summary judgment—to discount it 

accordingly. See, e.g., George, 407 F.3d at 413-14. 

Third, the district court reasoned that “unsubstantiated 

co-worker testimony alone is generally insufficient to raise a 

question of material fact regarding pretext at the summary 

judgment stage.” Johnson, 66 F. Supp. 3d at 42. But the coworkers’ accounts that Johnson offered to show that he was 

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treated more harshly than white employees were insufficient 

not because they were the unsubstantiated testimony of coworkers, but because their statements either were too general 

to controvert the employer’s particular concerns about 

Johnson’s job performance or spoke to aspects of Johnson’s 

work other than what the supervisors identified as deficient, 

or both. Courts may grant summary judgment to a defendant 

where a plaintiff’s evidence is vague or conclusory. See, e.g., 

Ransom v. Ctr. for Nonprofit Advancement, 514 F. Supp. 2d 

18, 27 (D.D.C. 2007) (rejecting on summary judgment 

plaintiff’s “vague and conclusory” allegation of 

discrimination); Chung v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 

No. 04-0366, 2007 WL 1154084, at *3 (D.D.C. Apr. 18, 

2007) (concluding affidavits too vague to be probative), aff’d, 

268 F. App’x 6 (D.C. Cir. 2008); Carter v. Rubin, 14 F. Supp. 

2d 22, 42 (D.D.C. 1998) (concluding deposition testimony 

and affidavits lacked requisite specificity). But determining 

whether a co-worker’s specific and relevant, if 

uncorroborated, testimony is trustworthy is a credibility 

determination reserved for the jury. 

*** 

 For the foregoing reasons we affirm the decision of the 

district court. 

So ordered. 

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