In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 00-4261

Joseph L. Simmons,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

Chicago Board of Education,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 97 CV 5451--John W. Darrah, Judge.

Argued September 25, 2001--Decided May 10, 2002

 Before Rovner, Diane P. Wood, and Evans,

Circuit Judges.

 Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge. Joseph

Simmons became the first African-American

treasurer of the Chicago Board of

Education in October 1995, shortly after

his unsuccessful run for city alderman.

Less than nine months later he was

demoted. He sued the Board claiming that

his demotion was illegally based on his

race and political activities. The Board

counters that it terminated Simmons

essentially for micromanaging his office,

in direct contravention of the orders of

his supervisor. The district court found

that Simmons had produced no evidence

that the Board’s stated reason was

pretextual and therefore granted its

motion for summary judgment. We agree

that Simmons has not produced enough to

demonstrate a genuine issue of fact about

pretext and therefore affirm.

I

 Simmons was hired as treasurer in

October 1995. His immediate supervisor

was the Board controller, Andrew

Gilchrist. Above Gilchrist in the chain

of command were chief fiscal officer Ken

Gotsch and chief executive officer Paul

Vallas. As treasurer, Simmons supervised

five separate divisions, including the

Investments Division, which was
responsible for investing Board funds.

Actual trades were normally made by the

lead trader, Pam Jurgensen, who reported

directly to Simmons. On any given day,

Board traders conducted between five and

100 transactions.

 Earlier in 1995, Simmons had mounted an

unsuccessful race for Chicago alderman

against 18th Ward incumbent Thomas

Murphy. A week after Simmons was hired,

Murphy called Vallas to complain about

the selection. The gist of Murphy’s

complaint was that Simmons had illegally

posted signs throughout the 18th Ward

during the period leading up to the

election and then had not removed them

afterwards. This oversight cost the

taxpayers money, since city workers had

to devote time to taking down those

signs. Murphy thought this indicated that

Simmons would not make a fiscally

responsible treasurer. Vallas informed

Murphy that he was unaware of Simmons’s

campaign and expressed surprise that he

had not learned of this fact during the

interview and application process. In

fact, Simmons had disclosed his

aldermanic campaign to Gotsch and

hisdeputy, Charles Burbridge, but that

information apparently was not passed

along to Vallas. Vallas later informed

Simmons at a public meeting of the Board

that "Alderman Murphy is not a big fan of

yours." In addition, sometime after

Simmons was demoted, Vallas bumped into

Murphy at City Hall and mentioned that

Murphy had been correct about Simmons.

 Frictions developed within the

treasurer’s office soon after Simmons was

hired. Jurgensen at times refused to

cooperate with Simmons and told him that

she had never worked for an AfricanAmerican before. Simmons complained to

his superiors that Jurgensen was

initiating trades that contradicted Board

policy and his weekly planning

directives. Gotsch did not respond to

these complaints with any action against

Jurgensen. Simmons also hosted an offsite office Christmas party, leaving only

one worker to cover phones. This

infuriated City Treasurer Miriam Santos,

who used the incident as an excuse to

argue that she (as ex officio treasurer

of the Board) needed more direct

supervision of the Board Treasury

Department. Vallas agreed to move

Jurgensen and two other white employees
from the Board’s Pershing Road facility

to City Hall.

 One of Simmons’s primary

responsibilities was to help implement

the trading and investment portions of a

new Investment Policy that Vallas had

pushed through soon after taking the helm

at the Board. Under the policy, the

treasurer is "responsible for all

transactions undertaken and shall

establish a system of controls." The

policy lists specific investments and

trades that require advance approval from

the chief fiscal officer and also states

that "the investment authority rests with

the Chicago Public Schools as delegated

by the Chief Fiscal Officer."

 In order to carry out that task, Simmons

developed a new system of controls for

trades, under which he demanded that

treasury staff receive pre-approval for

all transactions either at regular

strategy meetings or by telephone prior

to consummating an individual trade. For

the traders, this meant the onerous task

of notifying Simmons prior to the

execution of any of the up to 100 trades

each day. This in turn put the Board at

the risk of losing money when the market

moved during the often lengthy delays.

 On April 8, 1996, Burbridge wrote a memo

clarifying Simmons’s role in approving

trades. The memo stated that "The

investment policy does not require the

Treasurer to approve each individual

trade in a security prior to its

execution. Subordinate employees are

expected to execute trades in accordance

with strategies. The Treasurer is

expected to monitor their activity

retrospectively as part of the system of

controls regulating investments to insure

compliance with the strategy and policy .

. . . The Treasurer is not involved in

actual trading." The memo also warned

that failure to comply would result in

disciplinary action.

 Simmons responded with a memorandum to

Gotsch, Burbridge, and Gilchrist that

laid out his concerns with the

"interpretation of the Investment Policy,

the recent investment approval pattern

and practice, and the [April 8] memo."

Simmons indicated that he understood the

authority Gotsch had delegated to him,

basically reciting from the April 8 memo,
but he also sought to justify his system

of prior controls. He expressed confusion

about how his system could have

contributed to the alleged problems in

the timely execution of trades and noted

that he had at times denied approval for

trades he viewed as inconsistent with the

Investment Policy. He alluded to the need

for his tight controls to prevent

possible bankruptcy, although he

neverexplicitly stated that he would not

comply with Burbridge’s directive.

 Notwithstanding his opinion that the

criticism of his system was ill-advised

or ill-informed, Simmons claimed that

after he received Burbridge’s memo, he

took a completely hands-off approach to

trading. Gotsch, Burbridge, and Gilchrist

remembered things differently; they

claimed that Simmons ignored the memo and

continued to delay and prevent trades,

resulting in further loss of funds to the

Board. Effective June 20, 1996, Simmons

was demoted to a policy analyst position;

he was replaced by a white female. A year

later, the treasury staff, who had been

moved to City Hall, returned to the

Treasurer’s new location.

II

 We review the district court’s grant of

summary judgment de novo. Johnson v. Zema

Sys. Corp., 170 F.3d 734, 742 (7th Cir.

1999). All reasonable inferences will be

drawn in favor of the party opposing the

motion, and that party may attempt to

clarify or augment (but not contradict)

prior deposition testimony through

affidavits. Maldonado v. U.S. Bank, 186

F.3d 759, 769 (7th Cir. 1999). Simmons

asserts that the district court erred in

refusing to consider certain facts stated

in his affidavit. We need not explicitly

resolve this dispute, since we are

reviewing the judgment de novo and will

consider Simmons’s affidavit to the

extent it does not contradict other

evidence in the record. See Russell v.

Acme-Evans Co., 51 F.3d 64, 67 (7th Cir.

1995).

 To prevail on his race discrimination

claim, Simmons must show either direct

evidence of discriminatory motive or

intent or rely on the indirect burdenshifting method outlined in McDonnell

Douglas v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).

Simmons has focused on the McDonnell
Douglas approach. This means that Simmons

must present evidence tending to show:

(1) he was a member of a protected class;

(2) he was meeting his employer’s

legitimate job expectations; (3) he

suffered an adverse employment action;

and (4) similarly situated employees not

in the protected class were treated more

favorably. Id. at 802. If he meets this

burden, the Board must provide a

legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for

his demotion. At that point, the burden

returns to Simmons to present evidence

that the reasons offered by the Board are

actually a pretext for discrimination.

Id. at 804.

 The district court found that Simmons

had failed to establish either that he

was meeting the Board’s legitimate

expectations or that similarly situated

employees were treated more favorably. In

our review of this decision, we will

assume for the sake of argument that

Simmons has met his initial burden and

pass directly to the question of pretext.

Rummery v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 250

F.3d 553, 556 (7th Cir. 2001). We make

this assumption not because we are

convinced that Simmons has established a

prima facie case, but because the issue

of satisfactory job performance, which

lies at the heart of this dispute, must

be analyzed in detail at both stages of

the McDonnell Douglas test and it is

therefore simpler to run through that

analysis only once. See Gordon v. United

Airlines, Inc., 246 F.3d 878, 886 (7th

Cir. 2001).

 The Board has certainly produced

evidence of a legitimate,

nondiscriminatory reason for Simmons’s

demotion: its dissatisfaction with

Simmons’s policy of pre-approval of all

trades and his subsequent insubordinate

failure to comply with Gotsch’s directive

to change that policy. Simmons must

therefore show that the Board’s reason is

pretextual, which he can do either by

pointing to a discriminatory reason that

more likely motivated the Board or by

demonstrating that the proffered

explanation is not worthy of belief. Debs

v. Northeastern Ill. Univ., 153 F.3d 390,

395 (7th Cir. 1998).

 Simmons has offered no evidence that

race discrimination is what was really

motivating the Board. He claims that
because Jurgensen stated that she had

never worked for an African-American

before and complained about him

constantly to his superiors, her racial

animus somehow infected the decision to

replace him. But statements by

nondecisionmakers cannot satisfy a

plaintiff’s burden of proving

discrimination, Larimer v. Dayton Hudson

Corp., 137 F.3d 497, 500 (7th Cir. 1998),

and Simmons offers nothing but

speculation to connect Jurgensen’s views

with the actions of the ultimate

decisionmakers. Simmons also claims in

his affidavit that he "and others"

believed Burbridge was a racist, but he

offers no support for this other than

assertion. One of his own witnesses,

Bennett Currie, stated that some Board

employees who were treated better were

white, but others belonged to racial

minorities. Tellingly, Simmons himself

believed that Gotsch and Vallas, the two

men responsible for his demotion, were

not prejudiced against him because of his

race. Finally, Simmons cites as evidence

the fact that three white employees were

transferred out of his office and

returned a year after he left. But

Simmons admitted the transfer was

madebecause the City Treasurer requested

more direct supervision over the Board’s

trading staff, a decision she was

entitled to make as ex officio treasurer

of the Board; once again, this falls far

short of evidence tending to indicate

that Simmons’s race played any role in

the move.

 Simmons’s only other hope of proceeding

is to point to evidence showing that the

Board’s claim that he was demoted for

insubordination is unworthy of belief.

Despite Simmons’s continued insistence

that he had to approve trades as a fiscal

duty to the Board, the Investment Policy

is clear that it is Gotsch as chief

fiscal officer, and not Simmons, who has

ultimate investment authority. Gotsch was

perfectly within his rights to determine

that Simmons’s approval of individual

trades was both unnecessary and wasteful,

delaying the timely execution of trades

and distracting Simmons from the broader

policy and strategic goals the Board

wanted its treasurer to implement.

 The only evidence Simmons has offered to

contest the Board’s accusation is his own

affidavit. Simmons claims that he did
comply with the April 8 memo by

thereafter taking a hands-off approach to

trading. But it is unclear why this

affidavit, standing alone, should

persuade a trier of fact that Gotsch’s

version of events, supported by Vallas,

Burbridge, and Gilchrist, is unworthy of

belief. And it is worth recalling that

what matters is Gotsch’s confidence that

Simmons would follow the more supervisory

policy Gotsch envisioned: it does not

matter if Simmons himself knew that he

meant to toe the line in the future, if

Gotsch genuinely believed he would not.

See Olsen v. Marshall & Ilsley Corp., 267

F.3d 597, 602 (7th Cir. 2001) (issue is

not whether employer’s evaluation of

employee was correct but whether it was

honestly believed). Simmons also notes

that neither Gotsch nor Burbridge

responded to his reply memo, which he

characterizes as a request for

clarification. Gotsch and Burbridge may

not have seen it as such, however; the

reply states only that Simmons understood

the Board Investment Policy and knew that

he was not to require prior approval of

trades. It is unclear what in these

statements was intended to serve as a

request for clarification. On the other

hand, the memo expresses Simmons’s strong

disagreement with Gotsch’s interpretation

of the policy, which may have further

weakened his supervisors’ confidence that

Simmons would do as they wished.

 Simmons’s admitted prior policy of

micromanagement, which slowed down Board

trades and risked significant monetary

loss, combined with the tone of the

memorandum itself and Simmons’s later

deposition testimony that he felt he was

ultimately responsible to the Board (as

opposed to Gotsch) for his trading and

investment decisions amount to strong

evidence on the Board’s side of a

nondiscriminatory reason why Gotsch might

have removed him from the treasurer

position. On the other hand, Simmons has

produced no written documentation or

testimony from other Treasury employees

to cast any doubt on the Board’s charges,

and the tone of his reply memo, which

argued among other things that his

controls were necessary to prevent

bankruptcy, causes us to question exactly

what Simmons means by a "hands off

approach." Under these circumstances, he

has shown no evidence of pretext, and the

district court’s grant of summary
judgment to the Board was proper.

III

 Simmons also contends that the Board

violated his civil rights under 42 U.S.C.

sec. 1983 because it demoted him in

retaliation for his run for alderman. A

municipal agency such as the Board can be

liable under sec. 1983 for violating a

person’s civil rights through: (1) an

express municipal policy; (2) a

widespread practice constituting custom

or usage; or (3) a constitutional injury

caused or ratified by a person with final

policymaking authority. Kujawski v. Board

of Commissioners, 183 F.3d 734, 737 (7th

Cir. 1999); City of St. Louis v.

Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127 (1988)

(opinion of O’Connor, J.). However,

liability requires more than the fact

that a low level supervisor took some

action that was not later reversed by a

policymaker. Compare Praprotnik, 485 U.S.

at 130. One way or another, the policy

must be shown to be that of the

municipality itself. See McMillian v.

Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781, 784 (1997);

Gernetzke v. Kenosha Unified Sch. Dist.

No. 1, 274 F.3d 464, 468 (7th Cir. 2001).

In this case, the parties agree that

final policymaking authority rested with

Vallas. See 105 ILCS 5/34-3.3. The

district court concluded that the

undisputed evidence showed that Vallas

neither caused nor ratified the decision

to demote Simmons.

 This case differs somewhat from the

typical ratification fact pattern.

Normally, the plaintiff alleges that her

immediate supervisor has

unconstitutionally muzzled her free

speech through a demotion or termination,

and the defendants rely on the fact that

no higher level individuals were aware of

the unconstitutional basis of that job

action. See Kujawski, 183 F.3d at 736;

Praprotnik, 485 U.S. at 117. Here, in

contrast, Simmons is indeed arguing that

the higher level policymaker, Vallas, had

an unconstitutional motive for dismissing

him. Therefore, if there is any evidence

indicating that Vallas played a role in

Simmons’s demotion and acted

unconstitutionally, a trial would be

necessary to determine whether the Board

was liable for his actions.

 The district court found that Simmons
had produced no evidence that Vallas

played a role in the demotion, and that

Gotsch alone made the decision. This

conclusion, in our view, overstates the

matter. First, Vallas was well aware of

the decision to hire Simmons and his

placement in a high profile position.

Within a week of Simmons’s hiring, Vallas

had ordered his public relations

department to research news reports on

Simmons’s aldermanic campaign and had

directed Simmons to prepare a memo

listing his qualifications. Thus, unlike

Praprotnik or Kujawski, where ranking

policymakers argued they were entirely

unaware of the alleged speech activities

of a low-level employee, Vallas had full

knowledge of Simmons’s political forays.

 Vallas also issued the order to move

members of Simmons’s staff to City Hall

after the Christmas party incident, an

incident that Gotsch thought was blown

out of proportion by Vallas and Santos.

This action again shows fairly direct

involvement by Vallas in basic personnel

decisions within the Treasury Department

and casts doubt on his claims of complete

deference to Gotsch on such matters.

Finally, Vallas admitted that all final

personnel actions had to be approved by

him and that he had an active role in

creating the new policy analyst position

to which Simmons was transferred after he

was dismissed as treasurer. Such evidence

would clearly permit a jury to find that

Vallas was involved enough in the

transfer action to have had the

opportunity to visit a constitutional

injury on Simmons, and the district

court’s finding that Gotsch must have

fired Simmons on his own authority is

therefore error.

 That, however, does not save the day for

Simmons. He still must make out a prima

facie case of political motivation by

proving "that his conduct was

constitutionally protected, and that the

protected conduct was a substantial

factor in the decision to transfer him."

Garrett v. Barnes, 961 F.2d 629, 632 (7th

Cir. 1992); see also Mt. Healthy City Bd.

of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287

(1977). If he can do so, the Board may

still prevail by showing by a

preponderance of the evidence that there

was a legitimate non-political reason for

his termination. Nelms v. Modisett, 153

F.3d 815, 818 (7th Cir. 1998). There is
no dispute that running for political

office is an activity protected by the

First Amendment, but to survive summary

judgment Simmons must present evidence

that his campaign against Murphy was a

substantial factor in his ouster.

 Simmons has little to point to in

support of his claim that Vallas demoted

him for his political activities. First,

in response to Murphy’s phone call,

Vallas ordered Simmons to compose a memo

listing his qualifications as treasurer,

and Simmons feels this response reflected

a lack of support for the new treasurer.

Under the circumstances, however,

Vallas’s action seems like a perfectly

reasonable attempt to head off a

potential attack by an influential city

politician against a newly hired

employee. Furthermore, Vallas permitted

Simmons himself to draft the memo, and

Simmons does not contend that his

qualifications or lack thereof had any

role in the demotion decision eight

months later.

 The only other evidence Simmons points

to are three comments made by Vallas. The

first occurred at a public Board meeting

where Vallas, upon being introduced to

Simmons, announced "Alderman Murphy is

not a big fan of yours." Simmons says

this remark made him uncomfortable and

embarrassed, but it is impossible to

infer that Vallas’s utterance of this

understatement veiled some determination

that Vallas would later use this fact to

remove Simmons from his job. In his

second comment, made three months after

Simmons was removed, Vallas announced in

a meeting that he would remove any

employee "not doing their job . . . even

if they are Joe Simmons." This statement

too provides no evidence that Vallas

removed Simmons for his aldermanic run.

In fact, it bolsters a conclusion that

Vallas removed Simmons for

insubordination and was willing to take

the flak for that decision. The final

statement is a passing remark Vallas made

to Murphy sometime after Simmons’s

demotion, in which Vallas indicated that

Murphy had been right about Simmons. But

this comment merely proves that Vallas

now concurred with Murphy that Simmons

had not made a good treasurer and offers

no indication as to why Simmons failed to

make the grade.
 In cases where plaintiffs have prevailed

on political motivation claims, they have

offered far more evidence than this, such

as a pattern of decisions based on

political factors, Felton v. Board of

Comm’rs, 5 F.3d 198, 201 (7th Cir. 1993),

or direct testimony from someone other

than the plaintiff that the defendant

wanted to rid the division of a political

opponent. Nekolny v. Painter, 653 F.2d

164, 168-69 (7th Cir. 1981). Vallas was

aware of Simmons’s political activities

eight months before the demotion, and

Gotsch, whom Simmons admits was also

involved, knew of the campaign when he

hired Simmons. Cf. McClure v. Cywinski,

686 F.2d 541 (7th Cir. 1982) (defendant

prevailed despite his comments several

months earlier that plaintiff should not

be so politically active or he would "get

rid of him later.").

 Finally, even if Simmons could make out

a prima facie First Amendment claim, the

Board has offered a legitimate,

nondiscriminatory reason for his

demotion--his refusal to comply with

Gotsch’s directives and continued

interference with daily trading

activities. As we noted in our discussion

of Simmons’s race discrimination claim,

supra at 7, Simmons has offered no

evidence other than his own affidavit to

contradict the legitimacy of the Board’s

position, and that is clearly

insufficient. For all these reasons, the

district court was correct to grant the

Board summary judgment on Simmons’s First

Amendment claim.

IV

 Simmons has not offered sufficient

evidence to allow a finder of fact to

conclude that the Board dismissed him for

an impermissible reason, rather than

because of his failure to follow a

satisfactory system for executing trades

and his insubordinate refusal to comply

with his supervisor’s directives. We

therefore Affirm the judgment of the

district court.