Opinion ID: 3167566
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Race Discrimination Claim

Text: Mr. Lewis also alleges race discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17 (2012). Again finding no direct evidence of discrimination, the district court analyzed Mr. Lewis’s claim under the burden-shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas. The court assumed without deciding that Mr. Lewis had 4 established a prima facie case of race discrimination. Thus, the burden shifted to Twenty-First Century to show a nondiscriminatory reason for terminating Mr. Lewis. As evidence of a non-discriminatory purpose, Twenty-First Century pointed out that Mr. Lewis had missed too many work days, slept at work, used his personal cellphone at work, and reacted argumentatively when warned about his cellphone usage. After finding that any one of these policy violations could serve as a nondiscriminatory reason for the firing, the court placed the burden on Mr. Lewis to show by a preponderance of the evidence that Twenty-First Century’s explanation was pretextual. The district court concluded that Mr. Lewis was unable to meet this burden, and we agree for substantially the same reasons stated by the district court.