In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 05-1524

JIMMIE TREADWELL,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

OFFICE OF THE ILLINOIS

SECRETARY OF STATE,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Central District of Illinois.

No. 02 C 3316—Richard Mills, Judge.

____________

ARGUED JUNE 13, 2006—DECIDED JULY 27, 2006

____________

Before POSNER, COFFEY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Jimmie Treadwell filed this action

against the Office of the Illinois Secretary of State (“Office”).

He alleged that the Office violated Title VII of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., by subjecting

him to a hostile work environment, by discriminating

against him based on his race and sex and by retaliating

against him for filing complaints of discrimination and

harassment. The district court granted summary judgment

to the Office on all claims. The only issue on appeal is

whether the district court properly concluded that Mr.
2 No. 05-1524

Treadwell had not established a prima facie case of retaliation. For the reasons stated in this opinion, we affirm the

judgment of the district court.

I

BACKGROUND

A.

In 2000, Mr. Treadwell, who is African-American, began

working in the Index Department of the Secretary of

State’s Office as a division chief; his job classification was

Executive III. Several months later, his supervisor, Cherri

Montgomery, an African-American woman, assigned him

to the position of operations shift supervisor in the Index

Department. His job classification and salary remained

unchanged. Mr. Treadwell was not happy with this assignment and complained to the chief of staff that Montgomery

was “racist” and “abusive,” particularly towards black men.

Rather than begin this new assignment, he took six weeks of

sick leave and vacation because, he testified, he was

“traumatized” by the assignment. Mr. Treadwell later

requested a transfer and eventually returned to work as a

project manager in the Planning and Development Division

of the Department of Physical Services. In this position, he

no longer was supervised by Montgomery.

In December 2000, several months after this transfer,

Mr. Treadwell filed an internal complaint; he alleged

that Montgomery was mentally unstable, that she had

harassed him and that she had treated him in an unprofessional and abusive manner. Following an investigation,

Montgomery was transferred to a non-supervisory position.

Mr. Treadwell claims that he also filed charges with the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) in
No. 05-1524 3

August 2001 and that these charges alleged that Montgomery had harassed and discriminated against him. The Office

denies receiving any notification of charges filed around this

time.

In November 2001, one year after becoming project

manager, Mr. Treadwell accepted a reduction in classification from Executive III to Managerial Assistant III, but

retained his project-manager title and salary. Two months

later, due to funding constraints that limited the number

of project managers the Department could retain, Mr.

Treadwell lost his project-manager title and was transferred

to a warehouse location where additional personnel were

needed. He retained his Managerial Assistant III classification and salary; he asserts, however, that his job duties and

responsibilities were diminished because he no longer

worked with “professionals,” the work was less “important,” and the conditions at the warehouse were dusty and

uncomfortable. Mr. Treadwell’s concerns about the working

conditions led to his office at the warehouse being repainted

and carpeted.

Nonetheless, shortly after his relocation to the warehouse,

Mr. Treadwell complained about the work conditions to

Division Director Cecil Turner and by e-mail to Chief

Deputy Director Rick Kurnick. Over the next several days,

however, Mr. Treadwell refused to accept or return phone

calls from Turner or Kurnick. Indeed, he once refused to

take the phone when it was handed to him by his immediate

supervisor. Mr. Treadwell then wrote to various individuals

in the Office, asserting that his work conditions were

“deplorable” and that his placement at the warehouse was

the result of racism. Turner, who is African-American,

suspended Mr. Treadwell for five days for insubordination

for repeatedly refusing to accept or return the phone calls

from his superiors.
4 No. 05-1524

B.

Mr. Treadwell then brought this action in the district

court. His complaint broadly alleged harassment and

discrimination based on race and sex, as well as retaliation for having engaged in protected activities. In his

opposition memorandum to the Office’s motion for summary judgment, Mr. Treadwell clarified his retaliation

claim: He asserted that he had been transferred to the

warehouse in retaliation for having made an internal

complaint of discrimination and/or for having filed

EEOC charges in August 2001.

The district court granted the Office’s motion for summary judgment on all claims. With respect to the retaliation claim, the only matter before us on appeal, the district

court held that Mr. Treadwell had failed to establish

retaliation under either the direct or indirect method of

establishing such a case. With respect to the direct method,

the court looked to our decision in Stone v. City of Indianapolis Public Utilities Division, 281 F.3d 640 (7th Cir. 2002),

and held that Mr. Treadwell had failed to establish his

case because he had not offered any direct evidence of

retaliation. With respect to the indirect method, the court

determined that Mr. Treadwell had not shown that he

was treated less favorably than a similarly situated employee who had not complained of discrimination or

harassment. Specifically, the court noted that Leslie Harris,

the only individual identified by Mr. Treadwell as having

been similarly situated, had been transferred to the warehouse and subjected to the same work conditions as Mr.

Treadwell even though she had not complained of discrimination.
No. 05-1524 5

II

DISCUSSION

As we have noted, our inquiry on appeal is limited to the

district court’s summary judgment in favor of the Office

on Mr. Treadwell’s retaliation claim.

A.

Mr. Treadwell first submits that he has demonstrated

retaliation under the direct method because a trier of fact

could infer from the evidence that employees who displeased their supervisors were transferred to less desirable

positions. To establish retaliation under the direct method

of proof, a plaintiff must offer evidence that he engaged in a

statutorily protected activity, that the defendants subjected

him to an adverse employment action and that a causal

connection exists between the two events. See Scaife v. Cook

County, 446 F.3d 735, 741 (7th Cir. 2006). The party opposing

summary judgment, in this case Mr. Treadwell, bears the

burden of coming forward with properly supported arguments or evidence to show the existence of a genuine issue

of material fact. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324

(1986); United States v. Funds in the Amount of Thirty Thousand Six Hundred Seventy Dollars, 403 F.3d 448, 463 (7th Cir.

2005).

The district court determined that Mr. Treadwell could

not prevail under the direct method of proof because, as

it interpreted Stone, Mr. Treadwell could not produce

any direct evidence of retaliation. The district court’s

reliance on our opinion in Stone suggests that this laconic

reference to “direct” evidence might have been based on

Stone’s “misleading dictum” that seemed to preclude the
6 No. 05-1524

1 The parties do not contest that the assignment constitutes an

adverse employment action. We therefore have no occasion to

elaborate on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burlington

Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White, 126 S. Ct. 2405, 2414-16

(2006).

use of circumstantial evidence to establish the elements

necessary to a direct case of retaliation. Sylvester v. SOS

Children’s Villages of Illinois, No. 05-4219, slip op. at 2 (7th

Cir. June 13, 2006). In Sylvester, however, we clarified that

circumstantial evidence that is relevant and probative on

any of the elements of a direct case of retaliation may be

admitted and, if proven to the satisfaction of the trier of fact,

support a case of retaliation. See id. at 2-4.

Although the district court may have taken too restrictive a view of the evidence that may be considered by

the trier of fact, our examination of the record convinces

us that any such misapprehension did not lead to reversible

error. Mr. Treadwell points to no evidence, direct or circumstantial, of a causal connection between the statutorily

protected activity—his filing of discrimination complaints—and the adverse employment action—his transfer

to the warehouse.1

 To the contrary, with respect to the

EEOC complaint, the evidence demonstrates that

Cecil Turner’s decision to transfer Mr. Treadwell was

unrelated to the complaint Mr. Treadwell claims to have

filed with the EEOC in August 2001. Indeed, both Turner

and the Secretary of State’s EEO officer claim that they were

unaware until 2004 of any assertion that Mr. Treadwell had

filed EEOC charges in 2001. Notably, Mr. Treadwell has

presented no contrary evidence to demonstrate either their

knowledge of such charges or that charges even were filed.

To the extent that Mr. Treadwell asserts it was his December 2000 internal complaint, and not the purported EEOC
No. 05-1524 7

charges, that motivated the retaliation, he also fails to

present any evidence, direct or circumstantial, that his

internal complaint had any bearing on the decision to

transfer him to the warehouse more than a year later.

B.

Mr. Treadwell also asserts that he established a prima

facie case of retaliation under the indirect method. Under

the indirect method, a plaintiff can establish a prima

facie case of retaliation by showing that “(1) after lodging a

complaint about discrimination, (2) only he, and not any

otherwise similarly situated employee who did not complain, was (3) subjected to an adverse employment action even though (4) he was performing his job in a satisfactory manner.” Stone, 281 F.3d at 642.

Here, the Office came forward with evidence that Mr.

Treadwell’s co-worker, Leslie Harris, never had filed an

EEOC complaint, and yet was subject to the same adverse

employment action that Mr. Treadwell had suffered. As

the district court noted, Harris and Mr. Treadwell both were

transferred to the same warehouse, where they both were

subjected to the same working conditions, treatment from

supervisors and low-level work assignments. Because he

and Harris were treated equally, Mr. Treadwell cannot

maintain that only he, and not a similarly situated employee

who did not complain of discrimination, was subjected to

the adverse employment action of which he complains. See

Stone, 281 F.3d at 642. Thus, the district court properly

concluded that Mr. Treadwell failed to establish a prima

facie case of retaliation under the indirect method.
8 No. 05-1524

Conclusion

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is

affirmed. 

AFFIRMED

A true Copy:

Teste:

 _____________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of 

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—7-27-06