United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted, May 30, 2013*

Decided June 3, 2013

Before

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 12‐3849

TORRENCE S. WILLIAMS,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

PATRICK R. DONAHOE, Postmaster

General of the United States Postal

Service,

Defendant‐Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 11 C 2477

Ronald A. Guzmán,

Judge.

O R D E R

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

*

After examining the parties’ briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral

argument is unnecessary. Thus, the appeal is submitted on the briefs and the record.

See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
No. 12‐3849 Page 2

Torrence Williams alleges that the United States Postal Service denied him a

promotion because he is African American and then fired him when he protested this

discrimination. He sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See 42 U.S.C.

§§ 2000e‐2(a)(1), 2000e‐3(a). The district court granted summary judgment for the

defendant, and Williams appeals. We affirm the judgment.

Williams worked as a “custodial laborer” from 2005 to 2010 at the O’Hare Airport

Mail Center in Chicago. He was a member of the “maintenance craft” of his union and

principally performed janitorial tasks. In January 2010 the Postal Service advertized three

openings for data collection technicians. The Service invited written applications from full‐

time employees in the “clerk craft.” Applicants had to describe their education and work

history, supply references, and explain how they satisfied 10 specific job criteria. Although

not in the clerk craft, Williams was told that he could compete for the jobs. He submitted an

application, but his list of references included only names (and sometimes no surname)

without any contact information. Valitta Hunter and Mamie Averhart selected 2 of the 14

applicants to interview. Those two, Edward Sanchez and Noel Garcia, who are Hispanic,

were hired in February; the third position was not filled.

Williams viewed the promotion of two Hispanics as discriminatory. He first

complained to an internal counselor in March 2010 and afterward submitted a formal

charge of discrimination. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105–06. Eventually an administrative law

judge dismissed that charge, see id. § 1614.109, but in the meantime the Postal Service

decided to shutter the O’Hare facility. Williams and other custodial laborers were told in

June 2010 that, based on their collective bargaining agreement, reassignments to other

facilities would be based on seniority.

Williams requested a reassignment near Chicago, but those positions were filled by

employees with higher seniority. About five months after he complained of discrimination,

the Postal Service reassigned Williams to a facility in Kansas City, Missouri. That news

prompted him to write to the Postal Service, warning that he would not relocate because the

reassignments, he asserted, discriminated against veterans. Williams failed to show up in

Kansas City on September 11, when he was scheduled. Three weeks later the Postal Service

warned Williams that he could be fired if his unauthorized absence continued. Williams

wrote again, this time stating that “Effective October 10, 2010; I cannot/will not accept the

involuntary reassignment” to Kansas City. The Postal Service deemed this a resignation and

ended his employment early in 2011.

Williams sued, advancing two claims. He alleged that the Postal Service did not

promote him to data collection technician because of his race, and it then retaliated for his

charge of discrimination by reassigning him to Kansas City, leading to a constructive
No. 12‐3849 Page 3

discharge. In moving for summary judgment, the Postal Service argued that under the

indirect method of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), Williams could not

establish a prima facie case of race discrimination. The undisputed evidence, it argued,

showed that he was not as well qualified for the technician jobs as Garcia and Sanchez, and

he was not treated less favorably than a non‐black, similarly situated applicant: Hunter and

Averhart attested that they promoted Garcia and Sanchez over Williams because of their

superior, relevant experience, and unlike them, Williams submitted incomplete applications

and had a history of poor attendance and disobedience. The Postal Service argued that the

retaliation claim was baseless because the Service reassigned the custodial laborers based on

seniority, as required by the collective bargaining agreement.

Williams responded that both of his claims should be tried. For his discrimination

claim, Williams opined that he was qualified to be a data collection technician, but conceded

that Garcia and Sanchez had more relevant experience, that he had no evidence that race

motivated the promotion decision, and that among the three, he alone had been disciplined.

Williams insisted, however, that Garcia was a not a member of the union’s bargaining unit

when he applied and thus was ineligible for the position. He speculated that two Hispanics

were chosen because the supervisor who oversaw the selection process is Hispanic. For his

retaliation claim, Williams argued that the “seniority”‐based rationale for reassignments

was a lie. He asserted that several Postal Service employees who had been involved in

reassigning him to Kansas City knew about his discrimination charge and improperly used

a “maintenance seniority system” rather than the “standard occupational group seniority”

system mandated by his collective bargaining agreement. By using the wrong system, the

Postal Service incorrectly designated two employees as senior to him.

The district court ruled for the Postal Service. It reasoned that a finder of fact could

not reasonably find that the Postal Service racially discriminated against Williams in not

promoting him. The court also rejected the retaliation claim because, if the Postal Service

used the wrong seniority system, it applied the same system to everyone equally, thereby

refuting retaliatory intent.

On appeal Williams argues that both of his claims should have survived summary

judgment, but he identifies no admissible evidence suggesting that the Postal Service

believed that its reasons for not promoting him (insufficient qualifications) and transferring

him to Kansas City (insufficient seniority) were false. Instead, he maintains that he was

qualified to work as a data collection technician, citing his own opinion and his college

transcripts, which show several courses in economics and statistics. The issue, though, is

whether a finder of fact reasonably could conclude that Hunter and Averhart did not

believe, when they selected Garcia and Sanchez, that those two were better qualified than

Williams. See Sublett v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 463 F.3d 731, 739 (7th Cir. 2006); Cichon v.
No. 12‐3849 Page 4

Exelon Generation Co., 401 F.3d 803, 813 (7th Cir. 2005). Williams conceded that he lacked

evidence suggesting that (1) the two women were lying when they explained their race‐

neutral reasons for selecting Garcia and Sanchez or (2) race played a role in the selection

process. Those concessions defeat his speculations about race bias and doom his

discrimination claim. See Adelman‐Reyes v. Saint Xavier Univ., 500 F.3d 662, 666–67 (7th Cir.

2007); Hudson v. Chi. Transit Auth., 375 F.3d 552, 562 (7th Cir. 2004).

Equally unfounded is Williams’s claim of retaliation. He argues that the claim

should survive summary judgment under either the direct or indirect methods of proof. For

both methods, he argues that the Service reassigned him using the wrong seniority system,

so its neutral explanation of relying on seniority is pretextual. But Williams submitted no

admissible evidence that the Postal Service used the “wrong” system to designate

Williams’s seniority. He offered his own interpretation of the collective bargaining

agreement, but that is insufficient to create a genuine dispute of fact for trial. See Majors v.

Gen. Electric Co., No. 12‐2893, 2013 WL 1592072, at *9–10 (7th Cir. Apr. 16, 2013). He also

offered an affidavit from Robert Nalaski, a former union official who left the union 13 years

ago. Even if the opinion of a union official involved in negotiating or interpreting the

contract were admissible, Nalaski was not associated with the union when the contract was

negotiated 7 years after his departure or when the Postal Service made the involuntary

reassignments. Because he does not have any personal experience observing how the

contract has been applied at the O’Hare facility, his affidavit cannot assist Williams in

avoiding summary judgment. See Luster v. Ill. Dept. of Corr., 652 F.3d 726, 731 (7th Cir. 2011).

Finally, in any event, even if the Postal Service used the wrong seniority system, Williams

has submitted no evidence that the Service knew the system was wrong. Absent evidence

that the Postal Service did not sincerely believe that it was using the correct seniority system

for the reassignments, the contention that the seniority rationale was pretextual is

unsubstantiated. See Silverman v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago, 637 F.3d 729, 744 (7th Cir.

2011); McCoy v. Maytag Corp., 495 F.3d 515, 522–24 (7th Cir. 2007).

AFFIRMED.