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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 18, 2008 Decided June 10, 2008

No. 07-7054

JAMES E. GINGER, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cv02512)

David H. Shapiro argued the cause for appellants. With

him on the briefs were Richard L. Swick and Ellen K. Renaud.

Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General, Office of

Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause

for appellees. With her on the briefs were Linda J. Singer,

Attorney General at the time the brief was filed, and Todd S.

Kim, Solicitor General. Edward E. Schwab, Deputy Attorney

General, entered an appearance.

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, GINSBURG,Circuit Judge,

and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge: After the Metropolitan Police

Department (MPD) reorganized its Canine Unit, eight police

officers in the Unit sued the District of Columbia, claiming to be

victims of racial discrimination and alleging several instances of

retaliation for having filed a complaint. The district court

granted summary judgment to the District, which we now

affirm.

I. Background

The MPD reorganized the Canine Unit in 2003. Before the

reorganization, the Unit was divided into four squads, each of

which worked four ten-hour shifts per week. Squads 1 and 2

worked the “midnight shift,” from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., and

Squads 3 and 4 worked the “day shift,” from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00

p.m. Squad 2 was composed of seven white officers and one

black officer; those eight officers are the appellants. The other

squads were roughly evenly divided between whites and nonwhites. 

Several years before the reorganization, Alfred Broadbent,

then an assistant chief of the MPD, recommended the

Department switch to a system in which the canine squads

would rotate between day and night shifts; he was concerned

that officers on a permanent midnight shift tended to become

alienated from the Department. Broadbent’s recommendation

was not implemented, but he raised it again after the Department

of Justice had pressured the MPD to adopt measures aimed at

monitoring the use of force by the Canine Unit. In 2002, when

Cathy Lanier became the Commander of the Special Operations

Division of the MPD, of which the Canine Unit is a part,

Broadbent urged her to reorganize the Unit from four permanent

ten-hour shifts to five rotating eight-hour shifts.

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At around the same time, Joshua Ederheimer, head of the

Civil Rights and Force Investigations Division of the MPD,

noticed that Canine Unit Squad 2 alone was the source of fully

11 of the 17 dog bites for which the entire Unit of four squads

was responsible in 2002. In a deposition he said he was

concerned about this imbalance, particularly upon realizing that

“all but one of the officers on that squad were Caucasian and ...

all of the people that had been bitten were African American.”

He told Lanier he was “very concerned about the racial makeup

of the squad and that some kind of action had to be taken.” He

noted that the media and the Department of Justice might flag

this disparity as indicative of a civil rights violation.

Ederheimer also informed Charles Ramsey, the Chief of Police,

of his concern. Ramsey said he would “do something” and

would “talk to ... Lanier.”

Duane Buethe, the supervisor of the Canine Unit, recounted

at his deposition that he participated in a meeting with Lanier,

Ederheimer, and other high-level officials of the MPD, in which

the racial composition of Squad 2 was raised: “[A]fter we started

talking about it and I looked at it and realized that the whole

squad, with the exception of one officer, was white ... my first

thought was this is not going to look good if it ever leaks out.”

He testified that Lanier said “oh, my, that’s not going to look

good” and “something’s going to have to be done.” 

Shortly after that meeting, Lanier wrote a memorandum to

Ederheimer stating in part that

11 out of 17 bites occurred with handlers in one Squad ....

The squad involved in the majority of the bites has a racial

make up [sic] that is predominantly white male ... in light of

the information gleaned in this analysis, changes will be

made ... in order to assign members with more K-9

experience equally throughout the tours of duty. The

proposed reorganization of the squads must also take into

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account the racial make up of those squads.

Ten days later Lanier announced the reorganization of the

Canine Unit. As reorganized, there would be five squads, each

of which would work five 8-hour shifts per week. One squad

would work from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., two from 3:00 p.m. to

11:00 p.m., and two from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. The shifts

would rotate every four weeks, thereby eliminating the

permanent midnight shift. The eight members of Squad 2 were

distributed among the five new squads. 

Prophetically, Lanier noted in announcing the

reorganization that “Change is never easy.” According to

Buethe, “Everybody [in the Unit] was upset. It was absolute

turmoil.” Several officers complained in their depositions about

the inconvenience associated with the rotating schedule. In

addition, because officers working overnight received a four

percent pay differential, the members of old Squads 1 and 2 --

who no longer worked permanently at night -- lost pay.

All eight members of Squad 2 filed a complaint of racial

discrimination with the EEOC. When the EEOC failed to take

action, the officers filed suit in the district court, claiming they

were victims of, inter alia, racial discrimination and retaliation,

in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42

U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.

The district court entered summary judgment for the

District. 477 F. Supp. 2d 41 (2007). The court agreed with the

officers that the reorganization had a sufficiently adverse effect

to give them standing to complain about employment

discrimination, id. at 50, but rejected that claim on its merits

“because every officer in the Canine Unit was subjected to the

reorganization.” Id. at 49. The court also held the alleged

instances of retaliation were either insufficiently serious to

support a claim for retaliation or lacked evidentiary support. Id.

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at 53-54. The officers filed a timely appeal.

II. Analysis

The officers contend the district court erred in granting

summary judgment to the District on their discrimination claim

because a reasonable jury could conclude the MPD reorganized

the Canine Unit in order to ensure the squads were racially

balanced. They also renew their argument that various

disciplinary actions and other incidents constituted retaliation

for filing their complaints with the EEOC. We review the

judgment of the district court de novo. Salazar v. WMATA, 401

F.3d 504, 507 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

A. Discrimination 

Title VII requires that “[a]ll personnel actions affecting

employees ... of the Government of the District of Columbia ...

shall be made free from any discrimination based on race.” 42

U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a); see also Borgo v. Goldin, 204 F.3d 251,

255 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (“Title VII places the same restrictions

on ... District of Columbia agencies as it does on private

employers”). We analyze first whether the reorganization was

a sufficiently adverse action to support a claim under Title VII;

we then consider whether the officers have adduced sufficient

evidence of racial discrimination to put their case before a jury.

1. Adverse action

An employment action does not support a claim of

discrimination unless it has “materially adverse consequences

affecting the terms, conditions, or privileges of [the plaintiff’s]

employment ... such that a reasonable trier of fact could find

objectively tangible harm.” Forkkio v. Powell, 306 F.3d 1127,

1131 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Although “[p]urely subjective injuries,

such as dissatisfaction with a reassignment ... are not adverse

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actions, ... reassignment with significantly different

responsibilities[] or a significant change in benefits generally

indicates an adverse action.” Id. at 1130-31 (internal quotation

marks and ellipsis omitted).

The District challenges the district court’s determination

that the reorganization was an adverse employment action. It

contends the reorganization was not adverse because it did not

change the officers’ responsibilities or cause a substantial

change in their benefits.

We disagree. First, as the officers point out, they lost

income as a result of the reorganization; because they worked

fewer hours at night, they earned less of the pay differential for

night work. A nontrivial loss of pay is an “objectively tangible

harm.” See Russell v. Principi, 257 F.3d 815, 818-19 (D.C. Cir.

2001) (performance evaluation that resulted in “loss of a bonus

that is worth hundreds of dollars” an adverse employment

action).

Second, the officers were considerably inconvenienced by

the reorganization. They testified that switching to a rotating

shift from a permanent shift severely affected their sleep

schedules and made it more difficult for them to work overtime

and part-time day jobs. As the officers convincingly argue,

inconvenience resulting from a less favorable schedule can

render an employment action “adverse” even if the employee’s

responsibilities and wages are left unchanged. See Freedman v.

MCI Telecomms. Corp., 255 F.3d 840, 844 (D.C. Cir. 2001)

(holding transfer to night shift an adverse employment action

because “the change in hours interfered with [the plaintiff’s]

education”).

In sum, after the reorganization, the officers were paid less

for working a substantially more difficult schedule. Clearly,

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these harms are “objectively tangible,” not “[p]urely subjective.”

Forkkio, 306 F.3d at 1130-31. 

2. Causation

To evaluate a claim of racial discrimination under Title VII,

we apply the analytical framework adopted by the Supreme

Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 793

(1973), as restated and refined in Texas Department of

Community Affairs v. Burdine:

First, the plaintiff has the burden of proving by the

preponderance of the evidence a prima facie case of

discrimination. Second, if the plaintiff succeeds in proving

the prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant “to

articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the

[adverse action].” Third, should the defendant carry this

burden, the plaintiff must then have an opportunity to prove

by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate

reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons,

but were a pretext for discrimination.

450 U.S. 248, 252-53 (1981) (quoting McDonnell Douglas, 411

U.S. at 802-04). In this case, because the District has advanced

several legitimate reasons for the reorganization, our concern is

not with whether the officers have made out a prima facie case.

Rather, the “central question” is whether the officers “produced

sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find ... the employer

intentionally discriminated against [them] on the basis of race.”

Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C.

Cir. 2008).

The district court entered summary judgment for the

District on two grounds, neither of which withstands scrutiny.

The first was that, because “every officer in the Canine Unit was

subjected to the reorganization,” no officer could claim

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employment discrimination. 477 F. Supp. 2d at 49. In order to

prove discrimination, however, a plaintiff need not demonstrate

that “a similarly situated person outside [his] protected class

[was] treated disparately.” Czekalski v. Peters, 475 F.3d 360,

365-66 (D.C. Cir. 2007); accord Mastro v. Potomac Elec. Power

Co., 447 F.3d 843, 851 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (“[W]e have expressly

rejected as immaterial a requirement that the plaintiff be [treated

differently from] an individual outside [his] protected class”);

George v. Leavitt, 407 F.3d 405, 412-13 (D.C. Cir. 2005)

(district court erred in holding plaintiff must show he “was

treated differently than similarly situated employees”); Stella v.

Mineta, 284 F.3d 135, 146 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (same).

The district court also opined, “The fact that concern about

race relations plays into decision making at a macro level when

developing policies on how to reorganize a police unit” does not

render the reorganization discriminatory. 477 F. Supp. 2d at 49.

We disagree: “[C]oncern about race relations,” however

important and legitimate a matter of policy it may be, does not,

under Title VII, make it permissible for an employer to subject

an employee to an adverse employment action because of his

race. See Taxman v. Bd. of Educ. of Twp. of Piscataway, 91

F.3d 1547, 1563 (3d Cir. 1996) (en banc) (holding a “nonremedial affirmative action plan cannot form the basis for

deviating from the antidiscrimination mandate of Title VII”).

Nevertheless, we affirm the grant of summary judgment for

the District. Although race may have played a role in the

reorganization, we agree with the District that a reasonable jury

could not conclude, as the officers contend, that the

justifications for the reorganization proffered by the District

were but pretexts for racial discrimination.

There are two ways of establishing liability in a Title VII

case. A plaintiff may pursue a “single-motive case,” in which

he argues race (or another prohibited criterion) was the sole

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reason for an adverse employment action and the employer’s

seemingly legitimate justifications are in fact pretextual. See 42

U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Alternatively, he may bring a “mixedmotive case,” in which he does not contest the bona fides of the

employer’s justifications but rather argues race was also a factor

motivating the adverse action. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m);

Fogg v. Gonzales, 492 F.3d 447, 453 (D.C. Cir. 2007)

(recognizing single-motive and mixed-motive theories as

“alternative ways of establishing liability”). In a mixed-motive

case, but not in a single-motive case, it is a partial affirmative

defense that the employer would have taken the same action

even “in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor”; in

such a case the plaintiff is entitled only to a declaratory

judgment, limited injunctive relief, and attorney’s fees. 42

U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B); Fogg, 492 F.3d at 451, 453.

In this case the officers proffered evidence indicating race

was a motivating factor behind the reorganization. As we have

seen, both Ederheimer and Buethe testified that they participated

in meetings with Lanier in which they each expressed the

concern that an almost all-white squad was responsible for a

disproportionate number of the dog bites caused by the entire

Canine Unit, and shortly before the reorganization, Lanier wrote

a memorandum to the same effect.

The officers might have had a compelling case had they

argued race was one of multiple motivating factors behind the

reorganization, but they did not. Rather, they brought a singlemotive case: According to the officers, race was the sole reason

for the reorganization, and the MPD’s nondiscriminatory

justifications were mere pretexts. That simply cannot be correct.

There were two aspects to the reorganization: The MPD

changed the composition of the squads, and it replaced the

permanent shifts with rotating shifts. The first aspect can be

explained as racially motivated, i.e., to break up the nearly allUSCA Case #07-7054 Document #1120856 Filed: 06/10/2008 Page 9 of 12
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white squad, but the second -- which was the aspect that

adversely affected the officers and gave rise to this action --

cannot. If the sole motivation for the reorganization had been to

ensure the squads were racially more balanced, then the MPD

could simply have switched some white members of Squad 2

with non-white members of other squads. It took the more

consequential steps, however, of changing the hours a shift

would work and of rotating the squads through the various shifts

-- steps entirely unrelated to the racial composition of the

squads. The officers, however, adduced no evidence whatsoever

of a causal link between race and those aspects of the

reorganization.

In contrast, the District presented three legitimate

justifications for changing the officers’ schedules. Lanier

testified that rotating the units would decrease the likelihood a

single squad would be responsible for a majority of the dog

bites, which occur disproportionately at night. She also said she

wanted to add a new sergeant to the Canine Unit, which by itself

necessitated some reorganization. Finally, Broadbent testified

that he believed the permanent midnight shift was undesirable

because the officers tended to become alienated from the

department.

The officers contend those justifications were intended to

cover up the MPD’s true motivation, but their theory is not

supported by the record. Recall that in her memorandum, Lanier

flatly stated that “[t]he squad involved in the majority of the

bites ... is predominantly white male” and that “[t]he proposed

reorganization ... must ... take into account the racial make up of

those squads.” To conclude race was her sole motive for

reorganizing the unit, therefore, one would have to believe

Lanier would make a significant change in every officer’s work

schedule in order to cover up a motivation that could not be

covered up; she had not only discussed her concern about race

openly with other senior officials in the MPD but even

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committed it to writing in an official document. Recall, too, that

Broadbent had proposed switching to a system of rotating shifts

years before the racial composition of Squad 2 became a

concern, which further weakens the officers’ theory that the

MPD’s justification were a pretext for racial discrimination. In

sum, the officers never contended this was a mixed-motive case,

and no reasonable jury could conclude the District’s

justifications were pretextual, leaving race as the sole motivation

for reorganizing the Unit; therefore, the district court properly

entered summary judgment for the District.

B. Retaliation

Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to retaliate

against an employee for filing a charge of discrimination. See

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a); Borgo, 204 F.3d at 255 n.5. An act of

retaliation gives rise to a separate cause of action under Title VII

if it is of sufficient significance that it “might have dissuaded a

reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of

discrimination.” Burlington N. & Santa Fe R.R. v. White, 548

U.S. 53, 68 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted); Rochon

v. Gonzales, 438 F.3d 1211, 1217-18 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

The officers refer to numerous incidents they claim

constitute unlawful retaliation, ranging from unjustified

reprimands to unwarranted drug testing. Only one of the

incidents, however, has any documentary support: One month

after the officers filed their discrimination charges with the

EEOC, Lanier issued a memorandum announcing that because

“there have been several Instances [sic] when the Special

Operations Division has had little to no officers working on

Saturdays and Sundays,” she would require “two squads from

every Branch that have middle of the week days off” to work

weekends. The memorandum then stated that “[t]hese squads

will be formed strictly by seniority.” 

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Two of the adversely affected officers contend this policy

constituted retaliation. They do not dispute, however, that the

Department had too few police officers working weekends or

that the policy was implemented strictly upon the basis of

seniority; nor do they give any reason to believe that Lanier’s

justification for the policy might have been pretextual. In sum,

they assert the policy was retaliatory, but they proffered no

evidence upon the basis of which a reasonable jury could agree.

See Greene v. Dalton, 164 F.3d 671, 675 (D.C. Cir. 1999)

(“Because [the plaintiff’s] claim of retaliation rests entirely upon

a conclusory representation, the district court was right to

dismiss it”). 

The officers’ other claims of retaliation relate to supposedly

undeserved disciplinary actions and other instances of

harassment, but all their allegations are vague and even those

that should have left a paper trail are unsupported by any

documentary evidence. “[A] mere unsubstantiated allegation ...

creates no genuine issue of fact and will not withstand summary

judgment.” Harding v. Gray, 9 F.3d 150, 154 (D.C. Cir. 1993)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

III. Conclusion

The officers presented no evidence to impugn the MPD’s

nondiscriminatory justifications for moving the Canine Unit

from permanent to rotating shifts. Their allegations of

retaliation are conclusory, vague, and for the most part

unsubstantiated. The judgment of the district court is therefore

Affirmed.

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