[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 20-12019

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 5:15-cv-02340-LCB

MEAGAN A. TROUPE, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

LOUIS DEJOY,

1

Postmaster General, United States Postal Service,

 Defendant-Appellee.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Alabama

________________________

(June 21, 2021)

1 Troupe brought her Title VII lawsuit against Megan Brennan, who was the Postmaster General 

at the time that she filed suit. Under federal law, Louis DeJoy was “automatically substituted” as 

defendant when he replaced Brennan as Postmaster General. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 25(d)(1); see

Fed. Rule App. Proc. 43(c)(2).

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Before WILSON, ROSENBAUM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Meagan A. Troupe appeals following the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment in favor of her former employer, the Postmaster General of the United 

States, in her employment discrimination and retaliation lawsuit under Title VII of 

the Civil Rights Act. After review, we affirm.

I.

Troupe is an African American woman who began working for the United 

States Postal Service in Toney, Alabama in June 2014. During her two years of 

employment with the Postal Service, Troupe was terminated three times—once 

after failing a “window training” examination that would have qualified her to 

work at the customer service counter, once after an extended absence following a 

workplace injury, and a third time after her work attendance was irregular for a 

period of several weeks—and reinstated twice through union grievance procedures. 

After the second reinstatement, Troupe successfully completed window training 

but continued to work the same hours as before, which required her to arrive at the 

post office at 4:00 a.m. to receive Amazon deliveries. Troupe was dissatisfied with 

this schedule and her limited working hours, and she became concerned for her 

safety after seeing a man walking toward her in the post office parking lot early 

one morning when she arrived. Her attendance at work became sporadic, and she 

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was fired a third and final time in late July 2016 for failing to maintain a regular 

work schedule. 

Troupe pursued her administrative remedies through the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission and filed this lawsuit in the Northern District of 

Alabama, bringing employment discrimination, hostile work environment, and 

retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e-16. After the parties completed discovery, the district court granted the 

Postmaster General’s motion for summary judgment on all of Troupe’s claims. 

Troupe now appeals the entry of summary judgment in the defendant’s favor on 

her claims of employment discrimination and hostile work environment.

2

II.

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, 

construing the facts and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the 

nonmoving party. Jones v. UPS Ground Freight, 683 F.3d 1283, 1291–92 (11th 

Cir. 2012). Summary judgment is appropriate when the record evidence shows 

that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the moving party is 

2 Troupe makes passing references to her Title VII retaliation claims in the statement of facts in 

her initial brief, but she makes no argument challenging the district court’s conclusion that she

failed to show a connection between the conduct she complains of and her protected activity. 

She has therefore abandoned her retaliation claims on appeal. See Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian 

Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681, 683 (11th Cir. 2014) (an appellant abandons a claim on appeal 

where she mentions it in her initial brief but “either makes only passing references to it or raises 

it in a perfunctory manner without supporting arguments and authority”).

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entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A genuine dispute 

of material fact exists when “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could 

return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 

U.S. 242, 248 (1986). “The mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of 

the plaintiff’s position will be insufficient; there must be evidence on which the 

jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.” Id. at 252.

On appeal, Troupe argues that the district court erred in granting summary 

judgment to the Postmaster General on her claims that she was subjected to 

adverse employment actions and a hostile work environment based at least in part 

on her race and color. We disagree. Summary judgment on Troupe’s 

discrimination and hostile-work-environment claims was appropriate because 

Troupe failed to present evidence from which any reasonable jury could infer that 

her race or color played any role in her employer’s personnel decisions or the 

alleged hostile treatment by her supervisor and coworkers.3

3 Troupe argues that the district court erred in concluding that some of her Title VII claims were 

barred under 5 U.S.C. § 7121(d) because she previously raised those issues through the union 

grievance process. The Postmaster General concedes that the district court’s decision in this 

respect—which essentially adopted the defendant’s own argument—was error, and that 

§ 7121(d) does not apply to Postal Service employees. See 5 U.S.C. § 2105(e); see also Maddox 

v. Runyon, 139 F.3d 1017, 1021 (5th Cir. 1998). We have not yet addressed this issue in a 

published opinion, and we need not do so here because we conclude that Troupe failed to present 

sufficient evidence of discriminatory treatment to survive summary judgment. We may affirm 

the district court’s judgment on any ground supported by the record, regardless of whether the 

district court relied on it. Kernel Records Oy v. Mosley, 694 F.3d 1294, 1309 (11th Cir. 2012).

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A.

Title VII provides, in part, that personnel actions affecting federal 

employees “shall be made free from any discrimination based on” race or color. 

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a). The “‘free from any discrimination’ language means that 

personnel actions must be made in ‘a way that is not tainted by differential 

treatment based on’ a protected characteristic.” Babb v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans 

Affs., 992 F.3d 1193, 1199 (11th Cir. 2021) (quoting Babb v. Wilkie, 140 S. Ct. 

1168, 1174 (2020)). 

A plaintiff may survive a motion for summary judgment on her Title VII 

discrimination claim by presenting circumstantial evidence raising a reasonable 

inference of intentional discrimination by her employer. Smith v. Lockheed-Martin 

Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir. 2011). One way to do so is by using the 

burden-shifting framework described in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 

U.S. 792, 802 (1973). Under this framework, the plaintiff must first make out a 

prima facie case of discrimination by showing that: (1) she was member of a 

protected class; (2) she was subjected to an adverse employment action; (3) she 

was qualified for the job; and (4) her employer treated similarly situated employees 

outside her class more favorably. Lewis v. City of Union City, 918 F.3d 1213, 

1220–21 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc). 

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Troupe has not made the preliminary showing required under McDonnell 

Douglas because she failed to identify an appropriate “comparator”—that is, 

another employee of a different race or color who was otherwise “similarly 

situated” to her “in all material respects” and who was treated more favorably than 

she was. Id. at 1224. Troupe mentions that, aside from Smith, the other employees 

in the Toney, Alabama post office were white. But she has not presented any 

evidence that any of those employees were similarly situated to her in all material 

respects and were treated more favorably than she was. For example, although 

Troupe testified that she had heard that employees of other races who failed the 

window training examination were not fired, she failed to identify any other 

employee of any race who took the examination and failed.4

But “establishing the elements of the McDonnell Douglas framework is not, 

and never was intended to be, the sine qua non for a plaintiff to survive a summary 

judgment motion in an employment discrimination case. Accordingly, the 

plaintiff’s failure to produce a comparator does not necessarily doom the plaintiff’s 

case.” Smith, 644 F.3d at 1328. A “plaintiff will always survive summary 

judgment if he presents circumstantial evidence that creates a triable issue 

4 We have recognized that the McDonnell Douglas evidentiary framework is not well suited for 

analyzing Title VII federal-sector claims, in any event. See Babb, 992 F.3d at 1204. That is 

because federal-sector plaintiffs may be able to show that a personnel decision was not made 

“free from any discrimination” under § 2000e-16(a) even if the government can show that it had 

nonpretextual reasons for the decision—“the presence of those reasons doesn’t cancel out the 

presence, and the taint, of discriminatory considerations.” Id.

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concerning the employer’s discriminatory intent”—what we have sometimes 

referred to as a “convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence.” Id.; see Hamilton 

v. Southland Christian Sch., Inc., 680 F.3d 1316, 1320 (11th Cir. 2012) (“A triable 

issue of fact exists if the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, 

presents enough circumstantial evidence to raise a reasonable inference of 

intentional discrimination.”).

Troupe presented no such evidence here. She testified that she believed that 

her initial termination was related to her color because although Smith was also an 

African American woman, she “was a darker shade” than Troupe, and aside from 

Smith, the other employees in the Toney, Alabama post office were white. In 

addition, Troupe alleged that at some point after Troupe’s first termination and 

reinstatement, Smith commented that Troupe had “a very even skin tone” and 

wondered why she wore makeup to work. These facts do not provide sufficient 

evidence to permit a reasonable jury to infer that Troupe’s race or color played any 

role in her three terminations or in the letters of warning issued by Smith. An 

“inference based on speculation and conjecture is not reasonable.” Avenue CLO 

Fund, Ltd. v. Bank of Am., N.A., 723 F.3d 1287, 1294 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation

omitted). Accordingly, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment 

on Troupe’s claims of race and color discrimination.

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B.

An employer is responsible for a racially hostile work environment, and 

therefore violates Title VII, when “the workplace is permeated with discriminatory 

intimidation, ridicule, and insult, that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the 

conditions of the victim’s employment.” Fernandez v. Trees, Inc., 961 F.3d 1148, 

1152 (11th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). To succeed on a hostile-workenvironment claim, a plaintiff must establish that: (1) she is a member of a 

protected class; (2) she was subjected to unwelcome harassment; (3) the 

harassment was motivated by a protected characteristic, such as race; (4) the 

harassment was so severe or pervasive as to alter the terms and conditions of her

employment and create an abusive working environment; and (5) a basis exists for 

holding the employer liable for the harassment. See id. at 1153; see also Tonkyro 

v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 995 F.3d 828, 836 (11th Cir. 2021). The conduct 

complained of must result in an environment that is both subjectively perceived to 

be abusive by the plaintiff and such that it would be viewed as hostile or abusive 

by a reasonable person. Miller v. Kenworth of Dothan, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1276 

(11th Cir. 2002).

Troupe argues that Smith created or permitted a hostile work environment 

by: saying “Oh, you’re back” in a mocking tone after Troupe’s first reinstatement;

expressing her suspicion of Troupe’s workplace injury claim; questioning her work 

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ethic in front of other employees; treating her with a cold or sarcastic demeanor;

commenting on her “even skin tone” when she wore makeup to work; failing to 

resolve Troupe’s parking disputes with her coworkers or to adequately discipline a 

coworker who yelled at Troupe for taking the best parking space; failing to 

intervene when the same coworker “micromanaged” Troupe and criticized her 

work performance; and failing to add an additional employee to the early-morning 

shift to alleviate Troupe’s safety concerns. Again, even assuming that this conduct 

could be considered objectively severe and pervasive, Troupe has not shown that 

the alleged mistreatment she suffered was in any way motivated by her race or 

color. While Smith’s comment that Troupe had “a very even skin tone” may have 

been inappropriate, Troupe has not alleged that the comment itself was disparaging 

or abusive, and she has failed to show any connection whatsoever between her race 

or color and any of the other behavior that she alleges was hostile or abusive. 

It is a “bedrock principle that not all objectionable conduct or language 

amounts to discrimination under Title VII.” Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, 

Inc., 594 F.3d 798, 809 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Title VII is not a “general 

civility code” and does not make ordinary workplace conflicts actionable. Cotton 

v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., 434 F.3d 1227, 1234 (11th Cir. 2006) 

(citation omitted). Because she failed to establish a connection between her race or 

color and the allegedly harassing behavior, the defendant was entitled to judgment 

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as a matter of law on Troupe’s hostile work environment claim—“only conduct 

that is ‘based on’ a protected category, such as race, may be considered in a hostile 

work environment analysis.” Jones, 683 F.3d at 1297. 

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment in favor of the Postmaster General on Troupe’s Title VII claims.

AFFIRMED.

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