# United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted April 1 , 2022 *

Decided April 1 , 2022

Before

DIANE S. SYKES , Chief Judge

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK , Circuit Judge

MICHAEL B. BRENNAN , Circuit Judge

No. 21-3001

TANIKA BEAULIEU , Plaintiff -Appell ant ,

v

.
NEWQUEST MANAGEMENT OF ILLINOIS, LLC , Defendant

- Appell ee

. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinoi s, Eastern Division

.

No. 1:17- cv -05672

Martha M. Pacold , Judge

.

O R D E R

Tanika Beaulieu resigned from NewQuest Management of Illinois, LLC , and then sued the company for rac e discrimination and retaliation

. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2, 2000e-3. She accuse s the company of harass ing her and denying her a promotion, better pay, and more benefits

. Beaulieu disobeyed the court’s rules when responding to

* 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. F ED

. R. A PP

. P. 34(a)(2)(C). NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION To be cited only in accordance with F ED

. R. A PP

. P. 32.1No. 21-3001 Page 2

NewQuest ’s statement of facts in its motion for summary judgment , and t he district court entered summary judgment for NewQuest

. On appeal, Beaulieu contends that the judgment i s wrong because a court reporter altered a deposition transcript and the judge did not assess all the evidence. But the charge of alteration is unsubstantiated and the material evidence undisputed ly warrants judgment for NewQ ue st ; thus we affirm.

We review the entry of summary judgment de novo, construing the record evidence in Bea ulieu’s favor. See Khungar v. Access Cmty. Health Network , 985 F.3d 565, 572 (7th Cir. 2021). Beaulieu , who identifies herself as African -American, work ed in customer service at NewQuest, a healthcare management company

. She contends that she was racially harass ed soon after she started working at the company in 2014 . At that time , she report ed to Juan Salas, a Hispanic man. According to B e aulie u , Salas called her stupid, yelled at her in front of peers, and sat so close to her at meetings that h is spit landed on her as he talked. W hen she later reported to a new supervisor, Beaulieu says that Salas still scold ed her before her peers and chastised her about unscheduled breaks. ( Beaulieu also says that a director touched her back, criticized her, and may have prankcalled her .) Deeming Salas a racist, Beaulieu complained to management about him.

Beaulieu also contends that NewQuest denied her a promotion, pay , and other benefits. S he interviewed f or the promotion , but NewQuest hired a different African

American woman. Before it mad e that decision, Beaulieu had over heard two words ( “your people” ) used i n an unknown context as Salas, one of the interviewers, s poke to the other interviewer, an African

- American manager. Beaulieu also says that NewQuest paid her less than a Hispanic employee who had worked at the company longer. Finally, Beaulieu did not receive some discretionary b enefits . F irst, n ine customer

service workers received bonuses ( four were African

- American ) , but Beaulieu did not. Second, some employees (but not Beaulieu) could work from home or sometimes leave early on holidays. NewQuest permitted employ ees to work from home if they met performance -based criteria, had a work area at home, and could support NewQuest ’s technology. A t least six African

- American employees met these criteria during Beaulieu’s employment. Relatedly , NewQuest reprimanded Beaulie u for skipping work entirely on a day when, because of inclement weather, NewQuest allowed workers who showed up to leave early

.

Beaulieu resigned in March 2016. Before she resigned, s he had missed work for

an approved medical appointment ; NewQuest mistakenly recorded the absence as a “no

- show” and fired her. It quickly acknowledged it s mistake and restored her employment status . S haken by the experience , Beaulieu resigned anyway.No. 21-3001 Page 3

Beaulieu sued NewQuest alleging race discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2, 2000e-3 . When NewQuest moved for summary judgment , B eaulieu opposed NewQuest’s statement of facts, but she did not compl y with Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rule s of Civil Procedure and Local Rule 56.1(b)(3). T herefore , the district judge permissibly ruled , Beaulieu’s unsupported assertions did not create disputed questions of fact

. See Patterson v. Ind. Newspapers, Inc. , 589 F.3d 357, 359–60 (7th Cir. 2009). I n her response, Beaulieu argued that the court reporte r had altered the transcript of Salas’s deposition at NewQuest’s direction

. Beaulieu wanted the court reporter to “release the tape ” of the deposition , but she d id not deny that she received it. On the substance, t he judge ruled that Beaulieu’s claims about harassment and the denial of promotion, bonus, and other benefits failed because , among other problems, no evidence suggested that the se actions were motivated by her race or complaints of discrimination . T he judge also ruled that the evidence did not support Be aulieu’s claim that she was constructive ly discharge d.

On appeal, Beaulieu argues that the judge ignored some evidence that supports her c laim s. First, she maintain s in a declaration that the court reporter altered several parts of the transcript of Salas’s deposition. Yet she never swears to what statement s from Salas the court reporte r omitted, as she must in order to create a disputed fact

. See F ED

. R. C IV

. P. 56(c)(4)

. Instead, s he declares that Salas testified that another manager made a racially motivated joke, but this is not evidence of the transcript’s alteration because in his deposition Salas conceded so much

. Second, Beaulieu argues that she did not receive some discovery that she requested from NewQuest . But she does not specify the discovery that she needed or why it was material . Therefore, th is argument goes nowhere. S ee Williams v. Bd. of Educ. , 982 F.3d 495, 511 (7th Cir. 2020 ).

Beaulieu next argues unpersuasively that the judge improperly “weighed” the evidence th at she considered . We begin with the claim of race discrimination , which require d Beaulieu to supply evidence that her race motivated NewQuest ’s actions

. Se e Khungar , 985 F.3d at 573. B eaulieu furnished nothing suggesting that the unpleasantness she described ( name

- calling, scolding, close encounters , discipline ), the privileges she did not receive (remote

- work, extra time off), or the denial of promotion and more pay occurred because of her race. For example , Beaulieu did not show that any hostility she attributes to managers was directed against only workers of her race

. And because Beaulieu did not assert that someone’s stray rac ial joke affected the performance or oversight of her work, it cannot support her claim. See Gorence v. Eagle Food Ctrs., Inc. , 242 F.3d 759, 762 (7th Cir. 2001). Nor did Beaulieu contradict, as sheNo. 21-3001 Page 4

must, NewQuest ’s evidence that it extended remote

- work privileges only to employee s who met its race

- neutral criteria

. Likewise, no evidence suggest s that the ambiguous comment she overhea r d ( about a manager’s “people”) after she interviewed for the promotion

— which went to an African American

— was about ra ce

. Finally, the undisputed evidence shows that pay differences and bonus es (which were also awarded to African Americans) were based on tenure and performance.

Beaulieu has similarly not presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable factfinder to concl ude that NewQuest retaliated against her because she complain ed about discrimination

. See Khungar , 985 F.3d at 578. All that she can point to is “s uspicious timing ” between her complaints and the various incidents over the next year that she describes . B ut given the delay between her complaints and the adverse events, timing is not enough here to support an inference of retaliation

. See Kidwell v. Eisenhauer , 679 F.3d 957, 966 (7th Cir. 2012).

Finally, the judge correctly ruled that Beaulieu did not support her constructive discharge claim . The workplace she describes, combined with NewQuest’s quickly corrected mistake about her “no

- show ,” did not suggest that race doomed her employment prospects ; nor was it an envi ronment so unbearabl y racially charged that she had to resign. See Fischer v. Avanade, Inc. , 519 F.3d 393, 409–11 (7th Cir. 2008).

AFFIRMED