United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted May 31, 2022*

Decided June 3, 2022 

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge 

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge 

No. 21-2426 

PETER OBAZUAYE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN 

SERVICES, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 19-cv-04933 

Mary M. Rowland, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Peter Obazuaye, who is Nigerian, sued his employer, the Illinois Department of 

Human Services, alleging that it refused to promote him based on his national origin 

and transferred him in retaliation for seeking the promotion. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 

2000e–2, 2000e–3. The district court dismissed the suit. Because it correctly ruled that 

*

 We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1 
No. 21-2426 Page 2 

the Department is not a “person” under § 1983, that Obazuaye did not properly file a 

charge of discrimination before bringing this lawsuit, and that no protected activity 

caused retaliation, we affirm. 

We summarize the events alleged in Obazuaye’s third amended complaint and a 

charge he filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2019, attached 

to the defendants’ motion to dismiss. See Adams v. City of Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 729 

(7th Cir. 2014). Obazuaye had worked as a nurse for the Department for ten years when, 

in 2017, he filed a charge of discrimination. At some point, he applied for a promotion 

for which, he says, the Department refused to interview him because, as a Nigerian, he 

“wasn’t American and he did not speak [E]nglish clearly.” Then, in 2019, he was 

transferred. He responded with another EEOC charge in 2019. He limited this one to 

“retaliation.” It states the transfer was “a result” of not receiving a promotion and filing 

his discrimination charge in 2017. 

After receiving a right-to-sue letter on his 2019 charge, Obazuaye’s next step was 

to sue the Department and some of its employees under § 1983, § 1985, and Title VII. 

His operative complaint raises two contentions: first, that the defendants did not 

consider him for promotion because of his national origin, and, second, that they 

transferred him “to punish [him for] striving to get an administration position.” 

The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim. See FED. R. CIV. P.

12(b)(6). Obazuaye failed to state a § 1983 claim against the Department, the court 

explained, because it is not a “person” under that statute. Nor had he stated a claim 

under § 1983 or § 1985 against the individual defendants, the court added, because his 

complaint lacked allegations that they were personally involved in the events. The court 

next dismissed Obazuaye’s claims under Title VII. It first explained that he had not filed 

a charge with the EEOC complaining about a discriminatory failure to promote based 

on national origin, which Title VII requires him to do before bringing the claim in 

federal court. And, the court continued, he did not assert a retaliation claim because 

“striving to get an administrative position” is not protected activity under Title VII. 

Obazuaye appeals, but the district court correctly dismissed his complaint for 

failing to state a claim for relief. The Department of Human Services is a state agency 

and not a “person” that can be sued under § 1983 or § 1985. See Will v. Mich. Dep’t of 

State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 65–66 (1989) (section 1983); Small v. Chao, 398 F.3d 894, 898 

(7th Cir. 2005) (section 1985). Further, Obazuaye’s complaint does not connect the 
No. 21-2426 Page 3 

individual defendants to any misconduct. Without any personal involvement, they 

cannot be liable under these statutes. See Great Am. Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Novotny, 

442 U.S. 366, 372 (1979); Colbert v. City of Chicago, 851 F.3d 649, 657 (7th Cir. 2017). 

The district court’s dismissal of Obazuaye’s Title VII claims against the 

Department also was sound. Beginning with his claim that the Department did not 

promote him because of his national origin, we conclude that the district court correctly 

dismissed this claim because Obazuaye failed to include allegations reasonably related 

to it in his EEOC charge. To sue under Title VII, a litigant must first file a charge with 

the EEOC. See Chaidez v. Ford Motor Co., 937 F.3d 998, 1004 (7th Cir. 2019). He then “may 

bring only those claims that were included in [his] EEOC charge, or that are like or 

reasonably related to the allegations of the charge.” Id. (internal citation omitted). The 

only EEOC charge that Obazuaye relies on to satisfy this requirement is the one that he 

filed in 2019 and for which he received a right-to-sue letter. But the 2019 document 

charged only “retaliation.” It neither mentions Obazuaye’s national origin nor implies 

that the Department refused to promote him because of it. 

That brings us to Obazuaye’s claim of retaliatory transfer, which fails under 

Title VII for a different reason—the absence of statutorily protected conduct. See Carlson 

v. CSX Transp., Inc., 758 F.3d 819, 828 (7th Cir. 2014). Title VII prohibits employers from 

retaliating against an employee “because he has opposed ... an unlawful employment 

practice ... or because he has made a charge” of discrimination. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–3; 

see Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 59 (2006). Obazuaye’s operative 

complaint, however, does not allege that the Department transferred him because he 

opposed discrimination or filed a charge. Rather, he alleges only that it transferred him 

“to punish [him for] striving to get an administration position.” But seeking a job is not, 

in itself, opposition to discrimination under § 2000e–3; otherwise, every discriminatory 

failure to hire would also state a retaliation claim. 

We are mindful that Obazuaye asserted in his 2019 charge, and in earlier 

versions of his complaint, that the Department transferred him in 2019 because he filed 

an earlier EEOC charge in 2017. But two obstacles prevent him from proceeding on that 

theory now. First, his operative complaint—which omits this allegation—supersedes all 

previous versions. See Vitrano v. United States, 643 F.3d 229, 234 (7th Cir. 2011). Second, 

Obazuaye cannot base a plausible claim of retaliation solely on a two-year gap between 

his protected conduct in 2017 and the allegedly retaliatory transfer in 2019. See Carlson,

758 F.3d at 828 (“If the best a plaintiff can do is allege that he engaged in protected 
No. 21-2426 Page 4 

activity and then, years later, the employer took an adverse action against him, the 

claim may not be permitted to proceed.”); Carmody v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of Ill., 747 F.3d 

470, 480 (7th Cir. 2014). The district court gave him three chances to amend his 

complaint with further facts, yet he supplied none that suggest a retaliatory motive. 

AFFIRMED