Court Opinion

ID: 9838856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-08 15:00:47.403418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:02:18.827220
License: Public Domain

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                                                              [PUBLISH]

                                    In the

                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-11462
                           ____________________

        PAUL OSSMANN,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        MEREDITH CORPORATION,

                                                     Defendant-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-03200-SDG
                           ____________________
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        2                         Opinion of the Court                    22-11462

        Before JILL PRYOR and GRANT, Circuit Judges, and MAZE, ∗ District
        Judge.
        GRANT, Circuit Judge:
              Paul Ossmann was the Chief Meteorologist at CBS46, an
        Atlanta news station. But during his tenure, female colleagues
        raised repeated complaints that he engaged in inappropriate
        conduct and sexual harassment—including “compliments” about
        appearance, sexually charged language, requests for nude photos,
        and more. After several meetings with Ossmann did not stop the
        behavior, it became clear to local managers that he could no longer
        work at CBS46.
               The managers needed authorization from the station’s
        parent company to terminate his employment, so the local Human
        Resources Director moved the Ossmann ﬁle up the chain. She sent
        a termination request form to the corporate oﬃce explaining that
        Ossmann had violated the company’s sexual harassment policies;
        the form also included Ossmann’s race, the demographics of his
        colleagues, and identiﬁcation of potential comparator employees
        who had engaged in similar conduct.
              Ossmann, who is white, alleges that he was terminated
        because of his race in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The sexual
        harassment justiﬁcation, he says, was just a pretext. To survive

        ∗ The Honorable Corey L. Maze, United States District Judge for the Northern
        District of Alabama, sitting by designation.
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        22-11462              Opinion of the Court                        3

        summary judgment, Ossmann needed to show that a reasonable
        jury could conclude that if he were not white, the station would
        not have terminated him. The district court found that he did not
        make that showing, and Ossmann asks us to overturn that
        conclusion. He notes that the station’s new meteorologist is a
        Hispanic woman, but mostly argues that the existence of race data
        on the corporate form means that he was ﬁred because he was
        white.
               We cannot agree. The presence of race data in the local
        station manager’s termination request is not enough for any jury
        to reasonably conclude that Ossmann’s sexual harassment conduct,
        much of which he admitted, was pretext for the true reason for
        Ossmann’s ﬁring—his race. We aﬃrm the grant of summary
        judgment.
                                         I.
               Meredith Corporation hired Paul Ossmann in 2012 as a
        temporary weekend meteorologist for CBS46. Ossmann became
        the station’s Chief Meteorologist in mid-2017 and remained in that
        position until he was terminated less than two years later, in April
        2019.
              During that time, Ossmann’s female co-workers repeatedly
        complained of his inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment.
        In April 2017—a few months before his promotion to Chief
        Meteorologist—a female meteorologist reported that Ossmann
        had repeatedly told her that she “cockblocked” him over a dispute
        about vacation scheduling and that he had a dream about them
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                     22-11462

        having sex together. She also reported that Ossmann told another
        female employee that “his ﬁrst three-way was with a black
        woman.”
               When Ossmann met with Human Resources Director
        Laurel Berenguer and his then-supervisor Frank Volpicella to
        discuss the complaint, he admitted to using the term
        “cockblocked,” but he denied making the other comments.
        Volpicella issued Ossmann a written warning letter for exercising
        “poor judgment,” which Ossmann signed to acknowledge receipt.
        In that letter, Ossmann was “advised that further incidents may
        result in additional disciplinary action, up to and including
        termination” and was reminded of Meredith’s “zero tolerance for
        behavior that could contribute to creating a hostile work
        environment.” 1
               A little more than six months later, a female news producer
        also complained. She told HR Director Berenguer that Ossmann
        sent her “highly inappropriate” messages on Facebook. In those
        messages, Ossmann told her that he masturbated while thinking
        about her, that he wanted to have sex with her, and that he wanted

        1 Meredith’s sexual harassment policy prohibited, among other conduct,
        “unwelcome sexual advances” and listed examples of inappropriate behavior
        that could qualify such as “unwelcome sexual jokes or innuendoes, sexual
        stories, sexual objects, sexual gestures, inappropriate sexual contact, leers,
        stares, whistles, and blocking a path or exit.” Ossmann adds—without
        supporting evidence—that these policies only apply to conduct occurring in
        the workplace.
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        22-11462              Opinion of the Court                        5

        her to send him nude photos. When a meeting was called with
        Berenguer and Ossmann’s new supervisor, Steve Doerr, Ossmann
        admitted to sending the messages. He explained that he did so “in
        an attempt to enter into an oﬀ-duty personal relationship.” The
        meeting concluded with Ossmann apologizing to Berenguer and
        Doerr for making the female producer feel uncomfortable. The
        incident was memorialized in a written warning letter titled “Final
        Written Warning: Exercising Poor Judgment.” But, unlike the ﬁrst
        letter, this one was not signed by Ossmann. The parties dispute
        whether he received it. Ossmann says he was unaware of the letter
        until it was produced in discovery for this litigation and adds that
        Doerr told him privately that his conduct did not violate company
        policy. For his part, Doerr says that he provided Ossmann “with a
        written warning for violating Meredith’s policy against sexual
        harassment.”
               Roughly a year and a half later, yet another female employee
        raised yet another complaint. She reported that after the news
        aired Ossmann pulled her aside and said:
              Not to be like uncle Joe [Biden], I wanted to let you
              know I look at you all the time. You’re so pretty, put
              together. I see you walk around and you carry
              yourself very well. You’re very attractive and that’s
              attractive to me. You don’t ﬂaunt it. Don’t put it out
              there. You’re not all a selﬁe kind of person. You
              always look nice.

        In the moment, she thanked Ossmann for the compliment and told
        him that she liked working with him. But afterward she reported
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        6                     Opinion of the Court                22-11462

        to HR Director Berenguer that the comment made her feel
        uncomfortable—to the point that she immediately called her
        husband and parents—and that she was disappointed in herself for
        the way that she handled the situation. She feared that she had set
        herself up for it to happen again.
               HR Director Berenguer and Supervisor Doerr again met
        with Ossmann to discuss the allegations. According to Berenguer’s
        contemporaneous notes, Ossmann admitted to making the
        comments, but did not “mean anything by his comments.” In his
        view, he was just paying his coworker a compliment because he
        thought that they “had that kind of relationship.” (Ossmann now
        denies that he admitted to making the comments.) Doerr
        reminded Ossmann that this was not the ﬁrst time he had behaved
        inappropriately with female colleagues. Doerr also suspended him
        until Lyle Banks, the station’s General Manger, decided on how to
        proceed.
               Doerr and Banks reviewed the allegations and decided that
        based on Ossmann’s “pattern of violating Meredith’s policy against
        sexual harassment,” they “had no choice but to terminate” him.
        They believed that termination was necessary “to maintain a safe
        workplace free from sexual harassment.”
               Banks directed Berenguer to “put together a
        recommendation to submit to corporate for approval to proceed
        with termination.” Berenguer’s standard practice—based on
        training she received from Meredith’s corporate human resources
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        22-11462                 Opinion of the Court                           7

        director—was to ﬁll out a form called an “EEO Analysis.”2
        According to Berenguer, the purpose of the form was to gather all
        the “relevant information in making a request for review for
        discharge.” The form was required for any discharge, job
        elimination, restructuring, or reorganization.
               The EEO Analysis states that the station requested to
        terminate Ossmann because he violated the company’s sexual
        harassment and hostile work environment policies. It described
        the “cockblocked” and inappropriate messaging incidents, as well
        as an earlier incident that Ossmann claims was too distant to justify
        his ﬁring. The form did not describe the ﬁnal incident because the
        station moved forward with termination immediately rather than
        adding it to his ﬁle. Banks and Doerr are listed as the
        decisionmakers. The form includes Ossmann’s race, sex, and age—
        which Ossmann says tainted the decisionmaking process—and asks
        whether “other employees [have] been in a similar circumstance
        and, if so, how was that handled and resolved?” Berenguer listed
        two employees terminated for violating the company’s sexual
        harassment policies and another who received a written warning
        for “conduct unbecoming a manager.” Below that question, the
        form includes a table titled “Comparables (if applicable).” That
        table requests the same basic information provided for Ossmann—
        race, sex, age, job title, salary, and supervisor, among other things.

        2 Although there are obvious candidates for what this could stand for, the

        record does not offer the answer.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                22-11462

               But Berenguer did not complete this table with the
        information for the employees who were also disciplined. Instead,
        she listed the other ﬁve members of the weather team, none of
        whom had been disciplined, because they had “similar jobs or the
        same job.” And on the next page, the form includes a statistical
        analysis on how Ossmann’s termination would aﬀect the
        demographics of the news station generally and the comparable
        group—here the weather team—speciﬁcally. At the company’s
        Rule 30(b)(6) deposition, Berenguer repeatedly testiﬁed that this
        information was used to ensure that the company was “being
        equitable.” Or, putting it another way, she testiﬁed that it was used
        to make sure that the company was not “treating one person in that
        situation in that comparable group diﬀerently than others.”
                Berenguer emailed the station’s request to Kandis Bock, a
        Vice President of Human Resources at Meredith. The record is
        limited on what happened next. The email to Bock is not in the
        record; nor was she deposed. That said, we know that Bock
        provided the local station managers with authorization to
        terminate Ossmann. So four days after suspending Ossmann,
        Doerr notiﬁed him that he was being terminated. Three weeks
        later, the station replaced Ossmann with Jennifer Valdez, a Hispanic
        meteorologist. Valdez had been with the station longer than
        Ossmann, and he admits that she was qualiﬁed.
               Ossmann’s suit alleges race discrimination in violation of 42
        U.S.C. § 1981 and breach of his employment contract’s for-cause
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        22-11462                  Opinion of the Court                              9

        provision. 3 After the close of discovery, Meredith moved for
        summary judgment and the matter was referred to a magistrate
        judge, who recommended that the motion be granted. The district
        court adopted a modiﬁed version of the magistrate judge’s
        recommendation and granted summary judgment for Meredith.
        Ossmann now appeals the district court’s order.
                                             II.
               We review the grant of summary judgment de novo.
        McAlpin v. Sneads, 61 F.4th 916, 927 (11th Cir. 2023). “A grant of
        summary judgment will be aﬃrmed if ‘there is no genuine dispute
        as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a
        matter of law.’” Furcron v. Mail Ctrs. Plus, LLC, 843 F.3d 1295, 1303
        (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). There is a genuine
        dispute when “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could
        return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Id. (quotation omitted).
        The evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the non-
        moving party and all reasonable inferences are drawn in that party’s
        favor. Id. at 1303–04.
                                             III.
                                             A.
                Ossmann contends that Meredith terminated him because
        of his race, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. “Section 1981 prohibits

        3 Ossmann’s complaint also brought claims for disparate discipline and hostile

        work environment, but he abandoned those claims below.
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        10                       Opinion of the Court                     22-11462

        intentional race discrimination in the making and enforcement of
        public and private contracts, including employment contracts.”
        Jenkins v. Nell, 26 F.4th 1243, 1249 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Ferrill v.
        Parker Grp., Inc., 168 F.3d 468, 472 (11th Cir. 1999)).
               The McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework generally
        applies to discrimination claims based on circumstantial evidence.
        Id. That framework ﬁrst requires Ossmann to establish a prima
        facie case of intentional discrimination. Lewis v. City of Union City,
        918 F.3d 1213, 1220–21 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc). If he does so, he
        is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of intentional
        discrimination.4 Id. at 1222. To rebut that presumption, Meredith
        needs to produce evidence of a valid, nondiscriminatory reason for
        terminating him. Id. at 1221. If it meets that burden, the
        presumption of intentional discrimination drops out of the case
        and Ossmann must demonstrate that Meredith’s “proﬀered reason
        was merely a pretext for unlawful discrimination, an obligation that
        ‘merges with the plaintiﬀ’s ultimate burden of persuading the
        factﬁnder that [he] has been the victim of intentional
        discrimination.’” Id. (quoting Texas Dep’t of Cmty. Aﬀs. v. Burdine,
        450 U.S. 248, 256 (1981)) (alterations adopted).
              Unlike a Title VII discrimination claim—where a lesser
        “motivating factor” standard sometimes applies—a § 1981 claim

        4 The district court concluded that Ossmann made out a prima facie case by

        showing that he belongs to a protected class, was qualified for the position,
        was terminated, and was replaced by someone outside of his protected class.
        That decision is unchallenged on appeal.
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        22-11462               Opinion of the Court                         11

        requires proof that race was a but-for cause of a termination.
        Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of Afr. Am.-Owned Media, 140 S. Ct. 1009,
        1013, 1017 (2020). This does not require Ossmann to prove that
        race was the exclusive cause of his termination, but it does require
        him to prove that but for his race he would not have been
        terminated. See United States v. Benjamin, 958 F.3d 1124, 1131–32
        (11th Cir. 2020); Ziyadat v. Diamondrock Hosp. Co., 3 F.4th 1291,
        1297–98 (11th Cir. 2021). So to survive summary judgment,
        Ossmann needs to show that a reasonable jury could conclude that
        had he not been white, he would not have been terminated.
                                          B.
               “When evaluating a charge of employment discrimination”
        we “focus on the actual knowledge and actions of the decision-
        maker.” Walker v. Prudential Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 286 F.3d 1270, 1274
        (11th Cir. 2002). Ossmann urges that Bock—the corporate HR Vice
        President who approved his termination—was the ﬁnal
        decisionmaker responsible for terminating him.                Meredith
        disagrees, contending that Banks and Doerr—the local station
        managers who investigated the allegations and decided that they
        “had no choice but to terminate”—were the ﬁnal decisionmakers.
        It may well be that the better view of this evidence is that the local
        station managers were the ﬁnal decisionmakers. But because we
        must make all reasonable inferences in Ossmann’s favor as the non-
        moving party, we analyze his employment discrimination claim
        assuming that Bock was the ﬁnal decisionmaker.
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        12                       Opinion of the Court                    22-11462

                Ossmann oﬀers several arguments. He starts by contending
        that the EEO Analysis is direct evidence proving Bock’s intentional
        discrimination. Failing that, he argues that Meredith has failed to
        satisfy its burden at step two of the McDonnell Douglas framework
        of producing evidence of its valid, nondiscriminatory reason, and
        that, in any event, he has met his burden at step three of
        demonstrating pretext. Alternatively, he says he has presented a
        convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence proving intentional
        discrimination and that he has shown a viable “cat’s paw” theory—
        under which Bock merely rubberstamped the racial animus of the
        station managers. We address each of his arguments in turn, but
        note at the outset that none succeed.5
                                            C.
               Ossmann’s ﬁrst set of arguments center on the EEO Analysis
        form. His opening volley is that the form is direct evidence of
        illegal discrimination. “Direct evidence of discrimination is
        evidence that reﬂects a discriminatory or retaliatory attitude
        correlating to the discrimination or retaliation complained of by
        the employee, and, if believed, proves the existence of a fact without
        inference or presumption.” Fernandez v. Trees, Inc., 961 F.3d 1148, 1156
        (11th Cir. 2020) (quotations omitted) (emphasis added). This is a

        5 Ossmann also appeals the district court’s order granting summary judgment

        on his breach of contract claim. But he concedes that his contract claim is
        “derivative of the § 1981 termination claim.” Accordingly, because we affirm
        the grant of summary judgment on Ossmann’s § 1981 claim, we also affirm
        the grant of summary judgment on his breach of contract claim.
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        22-11462               Opinion of the Court                       13

        “rigorous standard.” Damon v. Fleming Supermarkets of Fla., Inc., 196
        F.3d 1354, 1359 (11th Cir. 1999). We accept “only the most blatant
        remarks,” such as “a management memorandum saying, ‘Fire
        Earley—he is too old,’” as direct evidence. Id. (quoting Earley v.
        Champion Int’l Corp., 907 F.2d 1077, 1081 (11th Cir. 1990)). “If the
        alleged statement suggests, but does not prove, a discriminatory
        motive, then it is circumstantial evidence.” Fernandez, 961 F.3d at
        1156 (quotation omitted).
               The EEO Analysis does not meet—or even approach—this
        standard. The form listed several categories of information in a
        neutral fashion, including Ossmann’s race, as well as the race of the
        other employees. For this document to prove that Ossmann was
        terminated because of his race, we would need to infer that it
        treated his race as a negative factor and that had his race been
        diﬀerent Bock would not have approved his termination. Setting
        aside whether these inferences are even plausible, they are plainly
        inferences. And where inferences are required, evidence is not
        direct. The EEO Analysis is circumstantial rather than direct
        evidence, so we proceed to Ossmann’s remaining arguments.
               Ossmann next contends that Meredith did not rebut the
        presumption of intentional discrimination created by his prima
        facie showing under McDonnell Douglas. To do so, Meredith needed
        to produce evidence showing that Bock had a legitimate,
        nondiscriminatory reason for approving Ossmann’s termination.
        Burdine, 450 U.S. at 254. This justiﬁcation must be suﬃcient to
        “allow the trier of fact rationally to conclude that the employment
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11462

        decision had not been motivated by discriminatory animus.” Id. at
        257.
               As the district court recognized, the EEO Analysis—which
        says that the station terminated Ossmann for sexual harassment
        policy violations—is “evidence of what Bock received and reviewed
        with respect to Ossmann’s termination.” And the record includes
        Berenguer’s meeting notes describing underlying incidents of
        harassment, warning letters, and deposition testimony—all
        supporting Meredith’s contention that it ﬁred Ossmann because of
        repeated incidents of sexual harassment and inappropriate
        comments. This evidence is suﬃcient to give Ossmann a fair
        opportunity to demonstrate pretext and tracks rebuttal evidence
        this court has accepted before. See Vessels v. Atlanta Indep. Sch. Sys.,
        408 F.3d 763, 770 (11th Cir. 2005); Bogle v. Orange Cnty. Bd. of Cnty.
        Comm’rs, 162 F.3d 653, 657–58 (11th Cir. 1998). It plainly satisﬁes
        step two of the McDonnell Douglas evidentiary framework.
               We disagree with Ossmann’s argument that our decision in
        IMPACT v. Firestone compels a diﬀerent conclusion. 893 F.2d 1189
        (11th Cir. 1990). We have described that case as establishing that
        the employer “must present speciﬁc evidence regarding the
        decision-maker’s actual motivations.” Walker v. Mortham, 158 F.3d
        1177, 1181 n.8 (11th Cir. 1998). Here, the only information sent to
        Bock was the EEO Analysis, and even Ossmann argues that she
        made her decision based on the contents of that form. And as we
        explained in Vessels, so long as those “primarily responsible for
        making the decision[]”—here, the local station managers—
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        22-11462              Opinion of the Court                       15

        articulate a suﬃcient race-neutral justiﬁcation, the employer meets
        its burden of production even if upper level supervisors who
        approve the decision have not articulated the exact basis for their
        approval. 408 F.3d at 770; see also IMPACT, 893 F.2d at 1193–94
        (acknowledging that rebuttal evidence need not come from the
        actual decisionmaker). Like Vessels, this is not a case “where an
        upper-level manager overruled a subordinate manager’s
        recommendation or decision without explanation.” 408 F.3d at
        770. Meredith has met its burden to rebut Ossmann’s prima facie
        case, which means the presumption of intentional discrimination
        drops out of the case.
               Finally, Ossmann says that the form means he has provided
        suﬃcient evidence to show pretext at the third stage of McDonnell
        Douglas. At this point, Ossmann needs to show that a reasonable
        jury could disbelieve Meredith’s nondiscriminatory reason—
        repeated incidents of sexual harassment—and instead conclude
        that, but for his race, Bock would not have approved the
        termination. Brooks v. Cnty. Comm’n, 446 F.3d 1160, 1163 (11th Cir.
        2006). A “court merely uses the pretext inquiry to guide its
        determination of the ultimate issue at summary judgment.” Smith
        v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1346 n.86 (11th Cir. 2011).
        The pretext inquiry “merges with the ultimate burden of
        persuading the court that she has been the victim of intentional
        discrimination,” so we ask whether there is a genuine dispute of
        material fact as to whether Meredith intentionally discriminated
        against Ossmann. Burdine, 450 U.S. at 256.
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        16                         Opinion of the Court                       22-11462

               Unlike most discrimination plaintiﬀs, Ossmann does not
        oﬀer any evidence that employees of other races were not ﬁred for
        repeated instances of sexual harassment. Ossmann’s only evidence
        that Bock intentionally discriminated against him, aside from the
        fact that he was replaced by a non-white woman, is the inclusion
        of race on the EEO Analysis form. 6 This form does not remotely
        approach the amount of evidence necessary for a reasonable jury
        to conclude that Ossmann was ﬁred because of his race.

        6 Ossmann argues that two more pieces of evidence are relevant. First, he says

        that some incidents listed on the EEO Analysis were too old to serve as the
        basis for his termination, and that another was dated in the future. But the
        listing of previous incidents of sexual harassment does not demonstrate
        pretext—if anything it bolsters the conclusion that termination was
        appropriate. And no reasonable jury could conclude that the “future” event is
        anything but a typographical error given the substantial evidence showing that
        the incident happened on the same date two years before the date listed in the
        analysis.
        Second, Ossmann argues that an inference of pretext can be drawn from
        Meredith’s shifting explanations for the origin of the EEO Analysis. In its
        interrogatory responses, Meredith said that Banks directed Berenguer to
        prepare the EEO Analysis. But when (unsuccessfully) claiming attorney work-
        product privilege over the document, Meredith told the court that in-house
        counsel directed Berenguer to prepare it. From this, Ossmann says a jury
        could infer Meredith’s “consciousness of guilt.” Ossmann does not point to
        any authority for this inference. The authority that Ossmann does cite—
        United States v. Wilson—relied on a line of criminal cases recognizing that false
        exculpatory statements may be used to prove guilt. 788 F.3d 1298, 1311 (11th
        Cir. 2015) (citing United States v. Holbert, 578 F.2d 128, 129 (5th Cir. 1978)).
        Meredith’s explanation on the origin of the EEO Analysis was part of a routine
        assertion of attorney work-product privilege—it is neither a false exculpatory
        statement nor evidence of pretext.
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        22-11462                  Opinion of the Court                              17

               To start, the EEO Analysis form says on its face that
        Ossmann was terminated for multiple sexual harassment policy
        violations. In fact, it speciﬁcally describes three incidents of
        harassment. It also includes race data for the weather team and
        overall station statistics. Because of this, Ossmann contends that
        his race was “a negative factor” in the decision to terminate him.
        For its part, the dissent adds that the form required Bock to
        consider “racial balance” when making her decision and contends
        that a jury could infer that “Bock would have recommended that
        the lone black or Hispanic member be suspended rather than
        terminated to avoid racial imbalance.” Dissent at 4, 14, 17, 19, 23–
        24. But “inferences in favor of a plaintiﬀ can be based only on
        evidence—not on speculation.” Martin v. Fin. Asset Mgmt. Sys., Inc.,
        959 F.3d 1048, 1058 (11th Cir. 2020); see also Smith, 644 F.3d at 1328
        n.25.
                Speculation is all we have here. We agree that we must infer,
        at this stage of the case, that Bock considered the data on the last
        attachment to the form. But considered it how? The evidence does
        not provide an answer.
               The language of the form does not tell Bock what she should
        do with the racial data, and it does not require her to engage in
        racial balancing—it is completely neutral.7 As was the only

        7 The dissent points specifically to FAQ #10 in the EEO form as evidence that

        Bock was required to engage in racial balancing. Dissent at 5–7, 11–12. But a
        closer look at the full text of FAQ #10, rather than the excerpts quoted by the
        dissent, reveals that the form imposes no racial balancing requirements. FAQ
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        18                        Opinion of the Court                      22-11462

        testimony oﬀered to explain the document. According to
        Berenguer, the purpose of the data was to make sure that the
        station was not “treating one person in that situation in that
        comparable group diﬀerently than others.” 8 Indeed, we ﬁnd
        puzzling the dissent’s apparent inference that a 20-second pause
        before Berenguer described the company’s commitment to
        treating employees equally can be interpreted as substantive
        evidence of discrimination. See Dissent at 13–14. Particularly
        when she was being asked about how someone else used the form,
        and her only source of information was being “walked through” it
        14 years earlier when she started her job at the station.
               No reasonable jury could conclude from the bare fact that
        this document includes data on the race of all weather employees
        at the station that Ossmann was ﬁred because of his race. It is just

        #10 asks: “In reviewing the existing and proposed organizational charts, is a
        particular protected category of employee being impacted by the restructure
        at a higher percentage rate than similarly situated non-protected employees?
        Conduct a Risk Analysis as appropriate.” Doc. 71-4 at 2. To start, by its terms
        this inquiry applies only in restructuring actions rather than for termination
        requests (though the station responded in any event). And one can understand
        why a reviewing authority would want to know whether a restructuring (read:
        layoffs) would impact a protected category of employees in a way that
        presented legal risk to the company.
        8 We do not use oral argument to “ask attorneys to provide new evidence with

        which to make our own findings of fact.” United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th
        860, 876 n.12 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). So unlike the dissent, we do not rely
        on counsel’s statements at oral argument for additional factual evidence about
        how the form may have been used. See Dissent at 15. Instead, we confine our
        review to the certified record. See Id. at 874.
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        22-11462               Opinion of the Court                       19

        as likely (which is to say entirely speculative) that Bock used the
        race data in favor of Ossmann. We have no evidence either way.
        And we do not know what Bock would have done had Ossmann
        not been white because Ossmann does not have evidence that Bock
        treated employees of other races more favorably. If he did, a jury
        may have been able to make the inference that race was a but-for
        cause of his termination. But to infer that without any other
        evidence is nothing but speculation. On this record, a reasonable
        jury could not—by a long shot—conclude that Ossmann’s race was
        a but-for cause of his termination.
               Our decision in Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp. demonstrates
        the point. 644 F.3d 1321 (11th Cir. 2011). There, the company had
        ﬁred seven white employees who forwarded a racially oﬀensive
        email but had not ﬁred black employees for similar conduct. Id. at
        1332, 1336. Reversing the district court’s grant of summary
        judgement in favor of the company, we pointed to three pieces of
        evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer intentional
        discrimination.      First, there was evidence that the same
        decisionmaker had discriminated against other white employees in
        similar (but distinct) investigations into the distribution of racist
        emails occurring around the same time. Id. at 1341–44. Second,
        there was evidence that because of a tragic incident at a Lockheed-
        Martin facility in Texas—a racially based shooting that had received
        a massive amount of media attention—Lockheed-Martin was
        under intense pressure to “emphatically prove” that the company
        was committed to curbing racism against black employees by
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        20                    Opinion of the Court                22-11462

        ensuring that all white employees engaging in racist conduct were
        ﬁred. Id. at 1329, 1344–45.
                Third, there was evidence that a disciplinary review
        committee used a decision matrix that detailed each investigated
        employee’s conduct and included a column listing each employee’s
        race. Id. at 1336. After reviewing the ﬁrst two categories of
        evidence, we said that this matrix “strengthen[ed] the
        reasonableness of the inference” that the decisionmaker “sought to
        ﬁre all whites who distributed racist emails.” Id. at 1345–46. In
        light of the other evidence of racial discrimination, “Lockheed’s
        injection of race into its decision-making process yield[ed] an
        unavoidable inference that the employee’s race impacted the
        discipline determination.” Id. at 1346. And bolstering that
        inference, we pointed out, race was not tracked in an investigation
        into two black employees’ racist emails, which a jury could infer
        was “because it was already known that both employees to be
        disciplined . . . were black and, therefore, would not be terminated
        for their conduct.” Id. at 1346 n.87. Moreover, the company
        admitted that it had “no legitimate business purpose” in
        monitoring the employees’ race. Id. at 1346 n.85 (quotation
        omitted and alteration adopted).
               The dissent accuses us of avoiding the “unavoidable”
        inference that we recognized in Lockheed-Martin. Dissent at 4. But
        the reason that inference was unavoidable in Lockheed-Martin was
        the dramatic amount of additional evidence in that case. Here, we
        have none.
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        22-11462               Opinion of the Court                       21

               The more relevant point from Lockheed-Martin is its warning
        that an inference “is not a suspicion or a guess. It is a reasoned,
        logical decision to conclude that a disputed fact exists on the basis
        of another fact.” 644 F.3d at 1328 n.25. We heed that warning here.
        What Lockheed-Martin does not establish is that a reasonable
        inference of intentional discrimination is created any time race is
        included in a document used to facilitate an employment decision.
        Other evidence is needed to show that race was used in a
        discriminatory manner. In a diﬀerent case, with evidence that it
        was used for improper reasons in a particular employment
        decision, a form containing racial data could move the needle. But
        without any evidence suggesting that the race information was a
        negative factor against Ossmann, or was used favorably in
        evaluating a non-white employee, an inference of intentional
        discrimination is not reasonable. Much less “unavoidable.”
               The fact that Ossmann was replaced by a non-white
        employee is not enough. Being replaced by someone outside one’s
        protected class can help to establish the prima facie case of
        discrimination for burden-shifting purposes. Maynard v. Bd. of
        Regents, 342 F.3d 1281, 1289 (11th Cir. 2003). But it is not enough
        to carry the day on the substantive question of discrimination. See
        Cuddeback v. Fla. Bd. of Educ., 381 F.3d 1230, 1236 (11th Cir. 2004).
        Indeed, there is no record evidence suggesting that Bock was even
        involved in selecting Ossmann’s replacement—which would be
        necessary to infer that she approved his termination so that she
        could replace him with someone who is not white. Because
        Ossmann cannot show that a reasonable jury could conclude that
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11462

        Meredith intentionally discriminated against him—rather than
        ﬁred him for his repeated violations of Meredith’s sexual
        harassment policies—his claim cannot survive summary judgment.
                                         D.
                Notwithstanding the complete lack of evidence of
        intentional discrimination in this case, the dissent relies on two
        cases where the defendants aﬃrmatively sought to use race in their
        decisionmaking. Neither has any application here. The ﬁrst is Ricci
        v. DeStefano, where a local ﬁre department sought to intentionally
        discriminate against white ﬁreﬁghters to avoid disparate impact
        suits from non-white ﬁreﬁghters. 557 U.S. 557, 561–63 (2009). The
        Supreme Court held that the ﬁre department needed a “strong
        basis in evidence to believe it will be subject to disparate-impact
        liability” before it could engage in intentional discrimination to
        avoid it. Id. at 585. Meredith has not argued that it engaged in
        intentional discrimination, so Ricci is not relevant.
               The second case is the recent decision rejecting the race-
        based admissions systems of Harvard and the University of North
        Carolina, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of
        Harvard College, 143 S. Ct. 2141 (2023), which the dissenting opinion
        rightly concedes is not binding on these unrelated facts. Dissent at
        7–8. There, both colleges considered race at every stage of their
        admissions programs, openly admitted to doing so, and insisted
        that they be permitted to continue. Id. at 2154–2156, 2166. This
        case could not be more diﬀerent. It is a run-of-the-mill § 1981 case
        without any evidence of intentional discrimination.
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        22-11462               Opinion of the Court                        23

                Still, the dissent insists that SFFA helps “rebuﬀ Meredith’s
        ‘negative factor’ argument,” because the Supreme Court rejected
        the universities’ argument that race never played a “negative
        factor” in any applicant’s admission decision. Dissent at 7, 18–19;
        see 143 S. Ct. at 2169. But in SFFA there was extensive evidence that
        race was a positive factor in some applicants’ decisions. SFFA, 143
        S. Ct. at 2169. In a “zero-sum” game, therefore, race was a negative
        factor for other applicants. Id. The same conclusion cannot be
        drawn here; there is neither evidence that race has been used as a
        positive factor in other employment decisions nor evidence that
        Meredith treats its employment decisions as zero-sum.
               In sum, Ossmann lacks direct evidence of discrimination, he
        lacks evidence that Meredith treated his race as a factor favoring his
        termination, and he lacks evidence that Meredith treated similarly
        situated non-white employees more favorably. On the other hand,
        Meredith has produced extensive evidence of Ossmann’s sexual
        harassment, which is a valid, nondiscriminatory reason for his
        termination. On this record, no reasonable jury could infer that
        Meredith’s justiﬁcation was pretext for race discrimination.
                                         E.
               Ossmann says that even setting aside the McDonnell Douglas
        steps, he can prove his claim by presenting “a convincing mosaic of
        circumstantial evidence that would allow a jury to infer intentional
        discrimination by the decisionmaker.” Smith, 644 F.3d at 1328
        (quotation and footnote omitted). He is correct that the
        convincing mosaic metaphor oﬀers an alternative to plaintiﬀs
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        24                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11462

        unable to succeed through the McDonnell Douglas framework. See
        id.; Vessels, 408 F.3d at 768 n.3. The problem for Ossmann is that
        his evidence is neither convincing nor a mosaic. He oﬀers no facts
        besides the EEO form and his replacement’s race, which we have
        already determined are not enough to show discrimination.
                And in any event, the mosaic theory’s relevance is highest
        for employees who cannot make out a prima facie case of
        discrimination. These employees may, for example, lack adequate
        comparators but otherwise have circumstantial evidence of
        discrimination. See Smith, 644 F.3d at 1328; Bailey v. Metro Ambulance
        Servs., Inc., 992 F.3d 1265, 1273 n.1 (11th Cir. 2021). That is not
        Ossmann. Plus, the convincing mosaic inquiry is identical to the
        ﬁnal stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework: both ask whether
        there is enough evidence for a reasonable jury to infer intentional
        discrimination. Smith, 644 F.3d at 1326, 1328. We have already
        concluded that Ossmann’s circumstantial evidence fails to create a
        triable question of intentional discrimination. We say so again in
        rejecting his convincing mosaic argument.
                 Ossmann also raises a “cat’s paw” theory of liability. That
        theory “provides that causation may be established if the plaintiﬀ
        shows that the decisionmaker followed the biased
        recommendation without independently investigating the
        complaint against the employee.” Stimpson v. City of Tuscaloosa, 186
        F.3d 1328, 1332 (11th Cir. 1999); see also Ziyadat, 3 F.4th at 1298.
        Still, the non-decisionmaker’s racial animus must be a but-for cause
        of the termination. Ziyadat, 3 F.4th at 1298.
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        22-11462              Opinion of the Court                       25

               For this theory, Ossmann retreats from his claim that Bock
        acted with discriminatory animus. He instead says that she
        “accepted the Atlanta managers’ recommendation without
        investigating” and that the Atlanta managers—Banks and Doerr—
        recommended his termination for discriminatory reasons. He
        argues that Doerr’s reasons for recommending Ossmann’s
        termination—repeated episodes of sexual harassment—were
        pretext because, Ossmann says, Doerr did not believe that his
        harassing conduct violated Meredith’s policies. But even if that
        were true (as unlikely as it may be) Ossmann does not argue the
        same for Banks, who independently reviewed the facts and directed
        Berenguer to submit the termination form for corporate approval.
        Because both acted together, the causal chain between Doerr and
        the ultimate recommendation to Bock is broken by Banks’s
        participation in the decision. For Doerr’s alleged racial animus to
        be a but-for cause of his termination, Ossmann would have had to
        argue either that Banks also acted with racial animus or that
        Banks—like Bock—was a mere rubberstamp. He has done neither
        here.
                                  *      *      *
               The ultimate question in any discrimination case is whether
        the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiﬀ based
        on race. Ossmann failed to show that a reasonable jury could
        conclude that Meredith terminated his employment because he
        was white. The district court’s order granting summary judgment
        for Meredith is therefore AFFIRMED.
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                       1

        COREY L. MAZE, District Judge, dissenting:
              I agree with the majority that we must infer Kandis Bock
        considered Paul Ossmann’s race and the race of his coworkers
        when Bock approved Ossmann’s termination. Opinion at 19. But I
        think we must also make the next logical inference: if Bock
        considered race, then changing race would aﬀect Bock’s decision.
                The majority says this inference lacks reason and logic. I’ll
        let you, the reader, decide whether they are right. Below are ﬁve
        facts. Assume the ﬁrst four are true (I’ll show you the proof later),
        then ask yourself if it is reasoned and logical to infer that Bock
        would respond diﬀerently depending on the race of the
        meteorologist in Fact #5:
              1. A local station wants to ﬁre a male meteorologist for
                 sexually harassing female coworkers.
              2. Meredith corporate policy requires Bock to review and
                 then approve or deny the termination request.
              3. As part of her review, Bock must determine whether
                 terminating the meteorologist would impact a minority
                 racial group at a higher percentage rate than white
                 employees.
              4. To ensure Bock can conduct this review, corporate
                 counsel orders the local station’s HR director to ﬁll out a
                 form that identiﬁes the meteorologist’s race and the race
                 of his coworkers, then chart each racial group by
                 percentage.
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        2                        Maze, J., dissenting                 22-11462

               5. The resulting racial group chart tells Bock that:
                      a. The meteorologist is white, and granting the
                         termination request would increase the
                         percentage of black and Hispanic members of the
                         weather team from 17% to 20% each; or,
                      b. The meteorologist is Black or Hispanic, and
                         granting the termination request would decrease
                         the percentage of his minority racial group from
                         17% to 0%, meaning his race is no longer
                         represented on the weather team.
        Based on these facts, I think it is both reasonable and logical to infer
        that changing the race of the meteorologist would aﬀect Bock’s
        decision. Otherwise, what’s the point of disclosing his race and the
        race of his innocent coworkers?
               The majority avoids answering this question by declaring
        that the EEO form is “completely neutral” and “does not tell Bock
        what she should do with the racial data.” Opinion at 19-20. Not so;
        the EEO form told Bock how to consider race. I’ll show you the
        form and what Berenguer said about the form below.
              When we view this evidence in the light most favorable to
        Ossmann, we must infer that Berenguer sent Bock racial group
        data so that Bock could conduct a race-based disparate impact
        review, and under that review, we must infer that Bock “would have
        responded diﬀerently” if the station sought to ﬁre the lone black or
        Hispanic member of the weather team rather than one of team’s
        four white members. Comcast Corp. v. Nat’l Ass’n of African
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        22-11462                 Maze, J., dissenting                          3

        American-Owned Media, 140 S. Ct. 1009, 1015 (2020); see also Bostock
        v. Clayton Cty., __ U.S. __, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1739 (2020)(“a but-for test
        directs us to change one thing at a time and see if the outcome
        changes. If it does, we have found a but-for cause.”).
               Our precedent supports this inference. When faced with a
        similar race-conscious document, this Court has said that the
        inference that race mattered was “unavoidable,” and only a jury
        could decide what happened:
               On its face, the ‘matrix’ indicates that race was
               pertinent to the discipline decisions made, and
               Lockheed has not explained satisfactorily why this
               was legitimate. Therefore, although the district court
               entirely ignored this fact, Lockheed’s injection of race
               into its decision-making process yields an unavoidable
               inference that the employee’s race impacted the
               discipline determination, and it is a jury’s province to
               decide whether race actually bore on the decision to
               terminate Mitten.
        Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1346 (11th Cir. 2011)
        (footnotes omitted). If we stuck to Lockheed-Martin, the case would
        end here. We could cut-and-paste the conclusion and change just
        two names:
               [Meredith’s] injection of race into its decision-making
               process yields an unavoidable inference that the
               employee’s      race    impacted        the    discipline
               determination, and it is a jury’s province to decide
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        4                        Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

               whether race actually bore on the decision to
               terminate [Ossmann].
        Id. But the majority avoids Lockheed-Martin’s unavoidable inference,
        so we press on.
                                          I.

              Defendants rarely confess wrongdoing, so plaintiﬀs like
        Ossmann often base their inferences on circumstantial evidence.
        That doesn’t make their inferences unreasonable. Imagine
        discovering your child reaching into a cookie jar. When you ask
        why his hand is in the cookie jar, your child says nothing. You didn’t
        see your child take a cookie. He did not admit that he was taking a
        cookie. Yet you can reasonably infer: He was taking a cookie!

                                         A.
                Meredith’s hand is in the cookie jar. “Outright racial
        balancing is patently unconstitutional.” Students for Fair Admissions,
        Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 143 S. Ct. 2141, 2172
        (2023) (brackets and quotations omitted). Yet Ossmann oﬀers
        documentary evidence that suggests Bock considered the impact
        on racial group balance when deciding whether to approve
        Ossmann’s termination.
               Corporate counsel told Laurel Berenguer that, before
        corporate would sign oﬀ on Ossmann’s termination, she needed to
        complete an EEO Analysis form and send it to Bock. Berenguer
        testiﬁed that the EEO Analysis is a standard form that Meredith
        requires local stations to send “to corporate to review or request
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                       5

        termination,” and Meredith admits that Berenguer sent Ossmann’s
        EEO Analysis form to Bock “in the usual course of business.”
        The form’s header conﬁrms that corporate uses the EEO Analysis
        data to review termination requests:

        (circle added). Later on the ﬁrst page, the form instructs the person
        requesting a termination to:

        FAQ #10 asks the requesting party to disclose whether “a particular
        protected category of employee” would be impacted by the
        decision “at a higher percentage rate than similarly situated non-
        protected employees”:

        While FAQ #10 talks about protected groups “being impacted by
        the restructure,” Berenguer testiﬁed that corporate HR trained her
        to ﬁll out the form for terminations, as well as restructures and
        reorganizations, and she had followed that policy for 14 years.
                Consistent with her training and practice, Berenguer
        responded to FAQ #10 by typing “Reference Risk Analysis,” which
        refers to this “Risk Analysis” chart that Berenguer created:
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        6                      Maze, J., dissenting              22-11462

        The green column disclosed the racial makeup of the whole news
        station. The yellow column disclosed the racial makeup of the
        weather team, who Berenguer identiﬁed by name, race, age, and
        sex on the previous page:

        The gray column disclosed which racial group(s) would be
        diminished if Bock granted the request.
        These charts told Bock that terminating Ossmann would not
        impact minority employees (the African-American and Hispanic
        reporters who each comprised 1/6 of the weather team), “at a
        higher percentage rate than similarly situated non-protected
        employees” (the white employees who ﬁlled four of the six spots).
        They also told Bock that white employees formed the largest racial
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                        7

        group in the news department (49%) and the weather team (75%),
        so terminating a white employee would not negatively impact a
        protected racial group.
        The majority acknowledges that Bock considered this racial group
        data but concludes that no evidence supports how she considered
        it. Opinion at 19-20. But that conclusion ignores the obvious
        question: is there any reason Bock would consider the racial group
        makeup of the news station and the weather team other than to
        conduct the disparate impact review called for by FAQ #10? We
        don’t require jurors to check their common sense at the door. If the
        EEO form tells Bock how to use the racial group data, and
        Meredith oﬀers no other explanation for sending Bock the racial
        group data, then a juror can reasonably ﬁnd that Bock followed the
        form.
                                         B.
                Meredith says it adds racial group data to termination
        documents “to ensure equitable treatment of its employees.” And
        Title VII prohibits employment practices that disparately impact
        racial groups. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k). So why then is racial balancing
        problematic?
              Ossmann points to the Supreme Court’s recent statement
        that “[o]utright racial balancing is patently unconstitutional.”
        Students for Fair Admissions, 143 S. Ct. at 2172 (quotations omitted).
        That case, however, involved student admissions to college, not
        personnel decisions. So while Students for Fair Admissions helps
        Ossmann rebuﬀ Meredith’s “negative factor” argument, see infra
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        8                          Maze, J., dissenting                  22-11462

        Part II(C), its holding is not binding here. But Meredith is not out
        of the woods yet; there are two other reasons why conducting a
        disparate impact review was improper.
               1. Conducting a group disparate impact analysis when
        deciding whether to terminate an individual employee ﬂouts the
        Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 583–84
        (2009). In Ricci, white employees scored higher than minority
        employees on the New Haven Fire Department’s qualiﬁcation
        exam, thus placing them higher in the pecking order for
        promotions. Citing group statistics, some minority candidates
        threatened to sue the City under a disparate impact theory unless
        the City discarded the test results, and some white candidates
        threatened to sue under a disparate treatment theory if it did. The
        City threw out the test results to avoid the minority candidates’
        disparate impact claim.
               Despite the City arguing that it had to discard the test results
        to avoid a disparate impact lawsuit, id. at 579, the Supreme Court
        held that the City discriminated against high scoring white and
        Hispanic candidates. The Court recognized the conﬂict between
        Title VII’s individual-focused disparate treatment provision and its
        group-focused disparate impact provision. The Court resolved the
        conﬂict in favor of individuals by adopting this rule: “before an
        employer can engage in intentional discrimination for the asserted
        purpose of avoiding or remedying an unintentional disparate
        impact, the employer must have a strong basis in evidence to
        believe it will be subject to disparate-impact liability if it fails to take
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                        9

        the race-conscious, discriminatory action.” Id. at 585. The Court
        found that the City faced no possibility of disparate impact liability
        if it accepted the exam results because (a) the exams were job-
        related and consistent with a business necessity and (b) the City had
        not failed to adopt an equally valid, less-discriminatory alternative
        test. Id. at 587 (citing 42 U.S.C § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A), (C)).
               Like the City, Meredith oﬀers no evidence, much less a
        strong basis of evidence, that denying the local station’s request to
        ﬁre Ossmann would have caused minority employees to ﬁle a
        viable disparate impact lawsuit against the application of
        Meredith’s sexual harassment policy. Id. Nor, I suspect, would
        anyone argue that Meredith’s sexual harassment policy is not “job-
        related” and “consistent with business necessity.” Id. So Ricci forbid
        Meredith from analyzing how Ossmann’s ﬁring would impact
        racial balance.
               2. Meredith’s policy of providing race statistics for corporate
        HR to review when approving or denying local personnel decisions
        also contradicts the EEOC’s instruction to keep race-related data
        away from decisionmakers:
              § 1602.13 Records as to racial or ethnic identity of
              employees
              Employers may acquire the information necessary for
              completion of items 5 and 6 of Report EEO–1 either
              by visual surveys of the work force, or at their option,
              by the maintenance of post-employment records as
              to the identity of employees where the same is
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        10                      Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

              permitted by State law. In the latter case, however, the
              Commission recommends the maintenance of a
              permanent record as to the racial or ethnic identity of
              an individual for purpose of completing the report
              form only where the employer keeps such records
              separately f rom the employee’s basic personnel form or
              other records available to those responsible for
              personnel decisions, e.g., as part of an automatic data
              processing system in the payroll department.
        29 C.F.R. § 1602.13 (emphasis added); see also United States Equal
        Employment Opportunity Commission, 2021 EEO-1 Component 1
        Data Collection Instruction Booklet, Appendix D (“If an employee
        declines to self-identify their race and/or ethnicity, employment
        records or observer identiﬁcation may be used. Where records are
        maintained, it is recommended that they be kept separately from
        the employee’s basic personnel ﬁle or other records available to
        those responsible for personnel decisions.”).
               The EEOC seems to believe that the inference of disparate
        treatment of individuals is so strong when decisionmakers consider
        race that it recommends companies build a wall between those
        who collect and report race-related data and those who make
        personnel decisions. The evidence suggests that Meredith blew
        through that wall.
                                        —
              To sum up, the combination of the EEO Analysis form and
        Berenguer’s testimony creates a reasonable, logical inference that
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        22-11462                 Maze, J., dissenting                       11

        Bock considered race when deciding whether to terminate
        Ossmann. That FAQ #10 says that Bock was to use racial data to
        determine whether granting the requested personnel change
        would impact protected racial groups “at a higher percentage rate
        than similarly situated non-protected employees” supports a
        reasonable, logical inference that Bock would have responded
        diﬀerently if Ossmann was the lone black or Hispanic member of
        the weather team. That reasonable inference creates a genuine
        dispute of material fact that only a jury can resolve. See Fed. R. Civ.
        P. 56(a).
                                         II.
              The majority oﬀers three rebuttals to my reading of the
        evidence: (1) the EEO form does not tell Bock how to use the racial
        group data; (2) Berenguer testiﬁed that the purpose of the racial
        group data was to ensure that the station was not “treating one
        person in that situation in the comparable group diﬀerently than
        others”; and, (3) Ossmann oﬀers no evidence that Bock considered
        Ossmann’s race as a “negative factor.” I address each rebuttal in
        turn.
                                        A.
               The majority says that we cannot reasonably infer that Bock
        considered the potential impact on racial group balance when
        reviewing Ossmann’s ﬁle because “[t]he language of the form does
        not tell Bock what she should do with the racial data, and it does
        not require her to engage in racial balancing—it is completely
        neutral.” Opinion at 20.
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        12                      Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

               But as I showed in Part I, FAQ #10 told Berenguer to send
        data that would help Bock determine whether “a particular
        protected category of employee” would be impacted “at a higher
        percentage rate than similarly situated non-protected employees.”
        And the Risk Analysis charts that Berenguer created in response
        disclosed the percentage of each racial group so that Bock could
        determine the impact on racial group percentages.
               This language speaks for itself, and a reasonable juror could
        read it to require Bock to conduct a disparate impact review of
        racial groups.
                                         B.
                To support its ﬁnding that the EEO form is race neutral, the
        majority says that Berenguer testiﬁed that “the purpose of the
        [racial] data was to make sure that the station was not ‘treating one
        person in that situation in the comparable group diﬀerently than
        others.’” Opinion at 20. The majority omits important context.
        Here’s the full exchange between counsel and Berenguer, with the
        portion the majority quotes in bold:
              Q.    And you can’t remember from 14 years ago why
                    you ﬁll out that form or the instructions as to
                    why it says age, race, and sex?
              A.    I believe I’ve already answered that question,
                    but, yes, I do remember. So that we can — or not
                    we, but that upon review, it can be determined
                    whether there’s equitable treatment or not.
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                      13

              Q.   Well — but in your case, the comparables were
                   not being disciplined; correct?
              A.   Correct.
              Q.   So then why in the world would you need age,
                   race, and sex when you’re not — when you’re
                   comparing them to people that were not being
                   disciplined? Do you have an answer? Well, that’s
                   —
              A.   I don’t actually.
              Q.   That’s 20 seconds. That’s 20 seconds for the
                   Court — for the record. Go ahead.
              A.   I’m not the one who completes the analysis, so I
                   can speculate that it is making sure that you
                   aren’t treating one person in that situation in
                   that comparable group diﬀerently than
                   others.
              Q.   But in the comparables you put in, they weren’t
                   being treated to anything. How can you
                   compare and disprove the negative?
                   Isn’t it true Ms. Berenguer, that this is simply an
                   improper and illegal form used by Meredith?
              A. No, I don’t believe that to be true.
         (objections omitted). There are two reasons why Berenguer’s
        testimony does not show that Bock used race to ensure that
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        14                      Maze, J., dissenting              22-11462

        Ossmann was treated equally compared to others accused of sexual
        harassment, as the majority infers, Opinion at 21, rather than to
        judge the impact termination would have on racial group balance,
        as I infer.
               First, when asked why Bock needed to know the race of
        persons who had not been disciplined for sexual harassment,
        Berenguer sat stumped for 20 seconds before testifying that she did
        not know and could only speculate. Having watched Berenguer
        struggle to answer before admitting that she did not know, I doubt
        the district court would ﬁnd Berenguer’s subsequent speculation
        admissible or that a jury would ﬁnd it credible.
               Second, Bock could not perform the disparate treatment
        analysis that the majority infers from Berenguer’s testimony
        because, as the majority acknowledges (Opinion at 9), Berenguer
        did not provide Bock with the race of the other persons who had
        been accused of sexual harassment. A diﬀerent question on the
        form, FAQ #15, requested the data needed to conduct the race-
        neutral, disparate treatment analysis the majority infers:

        The majority’s inference that “the purpose of the [racial group]
        data was to make sure that the station was not ‘treating one person
        in that situation in that comparable group diﬀerently than others,’”
        id. at 20-21, may have been true if Berenguer provided the race data
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        22-11462                    Maze, J., dissenting                             15

        necessary to analyze FAQ #15. But again, Berenguer only provided
        race data for FAQ #10, and Ossmann’s argument stems from that
        race-conscious part of the form—not FAQ #15.
               Meredith’s counsel agreed with this distinction between
        disparate treatment review (FAQ #15) and disparate impact review
        (FAQ #10) at oral argument. When pressed to explain what
        Berenguer meant when she testiﬁed that she provided Bock with
        the race of “comparables” who were not accused of sexual
        harassment, counsel conceded that, “when [Berenguer] was talking
        about comparables, she was not talking about people who had
        violated the company’s sexual harassment policy, she was talking
        about people within the group—people who worked in the
        group—and whether or not the decision was going to have a
        disparate impact on the group.”
               I am not saying that counsel’s statement is “factual
        evidence.” Opinion at 20 n.8. The EEO form plus Berenguer’s
        testimony is the evidence. I’m just pointing out that, against its
        interest, Meredith interprets Berenguer’s testimony to discuss
        disparate impact review, not disparate treatment review. And if
        Ossmann, Meredith, and I all view the evidence to show disparate
        impact review, a reasonable juror can too.1

        1 I did not elicit “new evidence” about an attorney’s actions at the panel

        stage—the questioning the en banc court found inappropriate in United States
        v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 875-76 & n.12 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). See Opinion
        at 20 n.8 (citing Campbell). I instead asked counsel to reconcile Berenguer’s
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        16                          Maze, J., dissenting                   22-11462

                                             C.

               Finally, the majority says that we cannot reasonably infer
        that race mattered to Bock’s decision because Ossmann oﬀers no
        evidence that race was a “negative factor against Ossmann or was
        used favorably in evaluating a non-white employee[.]” Opinion at
        23-24. The majority’s search for a “negative factor” makes it stray
        from § 1981 and the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair
        Admissions.

               1. Section 1981(a) gives employees “the same right . . . to
        make and enforce contracts,” as members of another race. 42
        U.S.C. § 1981(a). Section 1981(b) says this right applies to
        terminations. If a plaintiﬀ alleges that the termination of his
        contract violated § 1981, a plaintiﬀ must show that race was a ‘but
        for’ cause of his termination, using this framework:

               If the defendant would have responded the same way
               to the plaintiﬀ even if he had been white, an ordinary
               speaker of English would say that the plaintiﬀ
               received the ‘same’ legally protected right as a white
               person. Conversely, if the defendant would have
               responded diﬀerently but for the plaintiﬀ’s race, it
               follows that the plaintiﬀ has not received the same
               right as a white person.

        testimony about “comparables” with the EEO form. In other words, I treated
        “attorneys as attorneys,” not “attorneys as witnesses.” 26 F.4th at 876, n.12.
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        22-11462                    Maze, J., dissenting                            17

        Comcast, 140 S. Ct. at 1015. 2 Applying the Comcast standard here,
        Ossmann must show that Bock “would have responded diﬀerently”
        if the local station requested the termination of a coworker of a
        diﬀerent race under similar circumstances. Id.; see also Bostock 140
        S. Ct. at 1739 (“a but-for test directs us to change one thing at a time
        and see if the outcome changes. If it does, we have found a but-for
        cause.”).

                That means Ossmann does not have to prove that Bock
        considered being white as a “negative factor” in the literal sense—
        i.e., being white added weight to the local station’s termination
        request—as long as Ossmann can show that Bock would have
        responded diﬀerently if the request was to terminate either the
        lone black or Hispanic weather team member. For example, if Bock
        would have recommended that the lone black or Hispanic member
        be suspended rather than terminated to avoid racial imbalance,
        then Ossmann did not receive the “same right” as his coworkers
        under § 1981; even if Bock did not consider Ossmann’s race as a
        “negative factor” when considering his termination.

               2. The Supreme Court made this point in Students for Fair
        Admissions. In that case, a group of Asian-American students
        challenged the admissions policies of Harvard College and the
        University of North Carolina because the policies allowed the
        colleges to consider applicants’ race. While both colleges admitted

        2 Section 1981 prohibits discrimination against all races, including white. See

        McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273, 295 (1976).
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        18                      Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

        that they considered race, they argued that “an individual’s race is
        never a negative factor.” Students for Fair Admissions, 143 S. Ct. at
        2169. Rather, race served as a positive factor for some applicants
        from underrepresented groups. Harvard, for example, likened race
        to playing a musical instrument: the ability to play was considered
        a positive factor for some, but the inability to play was not a
        negative factor for others. Id.

               The Court said, “[t]his understanding of the admissions
        process is hard to take seriously.” Id. “A beneﬁt provided to some
        applicants but not to others necessarily advantages the former
        group at the expense of the latter.” Id. In other words, making race
        a positive factor for some groups necessarily makes race a negative
        factor for other groups. To deny this, as Justice Thomas put it,
        “simply deﬁes mathematics.” Id. at 2199 n.9 (Thomas, J.,
        concurring).

                The Court explained that Harvard was making decisions
        that balanced race, as shown by the fact that “[f ]or the admitted
        classes of 2009 to 2018, black students represented a tight band of
        10.0%–11.7% of the admitted pool.” Id. at 2171. To ensure this
        racial balance, Harvard’s Admissions Committee would begin each
        meeting “with a discussion of ‘how the breakdown of the class
        compares to the prior year in terms of racial identities.’ And ‘if at
        some point in the admissions process it appear[ed] that a group
        [was] notably underrepresented or ha[d] suﬀered a dramatic drop
        oﬀ relative to the prior year, the Admissions Committee may
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                     19

        decide to give additional attention to applications from students
        within that group.” Id. at 2170 (citation omitted).

               In short, Harvard’s policy was to consider racial group
        balance when considering applications. To keep numbers in the
        college’s desired range, Harvard would treat applications
        diﬀerently because of race. So despite Harvard saying that race was
        not considered a “negative factor” when reviewing an Asian-
        American’s application, in reality, it was.

               3. Meredith’s EEO form worked the same way. Corporate
        required the local station managers to disclose their employees’
        race, including employees not accused of wrongdoing, so that
        Bock could consider group balance when deciding whether to
        approve the termination request.

               So the majority may be right that Bock didn’t consider
        Ossmann’s race as a “negative factor” when she opened his ﬁle and
        saw that he was white. But if Bock opened the ﬁle and instead saw
        that the local station was seeking to terminate the lone black or
        Hispanic member of the weather team, it is reasonable to infer that
        Bock “would have responded diﬀerently” to the termination
        request. Comcast, 140 S. Ct. at 1015. After all, the goal of FAQ #10
        was to ensure that the percentage of a “particular protected group
        of employees” was not negatively impacted compared to
        “similarly-situated non-protected employees.” Because this
        inference is reasonable and logical, we must make it and give the
        case to a jury—just as we did in Smith v. Lockheed Martin.
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        20                       Maze, J., dissenting                22-11462

                                         III.

              This case would be easy if we followed our reasoning in
        Lockheed-Martin.

               1. Before I explain why, though, I note my agreement with
        the majority that the Appellant in Lockheed-Martin, Anthony
        Mitten, had more evidence that Ossmann. As the majority lays out,
        Opinion at 21-23, Mitten presented three pieces of evidence that
        created a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence: (1) a ﬁnal
        decisionmaker previously discriminated against white employees,
        (2) Lockheed-Martin had motive to ﬁre white employees thanks to
        a recent racially based shooting, and (3) the disciplinary review
        committee was given a decision matrix that disclosed the
        employees’ alleged misconduct and race. While Ossmann’s
        documentary proof is stronger than Mitten’s (more on that later),
        he does not present motive or bad act evidence like Mitten.

        Having less evidence than Mitten does not, however, negate the
        reasoned, logical inference that Ossmann creates. Think back to
        our cookie thief analogy. Imagine that—in addition to your child’s
        failure to explain why his hand is in the cookie jar—you know that
        he didn’t eat breakfast (i.e., motive) and that he swiped a cookie last
        week (i.e., prior bad acts). Adding those facts would strengthen the
        inference that your child reached into the jar to take a cookie. But
        removing those facts doesn’t make the original inference that he
        was taking a cookie unreasonable or illogical. Likewise, the
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                      21

        majority’s point that Mitten had more evidence than Ossmann is
        true but not determinative.

        2. The decisive question is whether evidence that Bock considered
        a document that contained Ossmann’s race and the race of his
        coworkers (including those not accused of wrongdoing) is enough
        to create a reasonable inference of discrimination. The Court’s
        discussion of the decision matrix in Lockheed-Martin is on-point, so
        I quote it in full:

              The discipline ‘matrix,’ on which Mitten’s race was
              tracked, strengthens the reasonableness of the
              inference that Heiserman sought to ﬁre all whites
              who distributed racist emails and, thus, ﬁred Mitten
              because of his race. The disciplinary review
              committee and Heiserman relied on the ‘matrix’ to
              reach their discipline decisions, including Mitten’s.
              On its face, the ‘matrix’ indicates that race was
              pertinent to the discipline decisions made, and
              Lockheed has not explained satisfactorily why this
              was legitimate. Therefore, although the district court
              entirely ignored this fact, Lockheed’s injection of race
              into its decision-making process yields an unavoidable
              inference that the employee’s race impacted the
              discipline determination, and it is a jury’s province to
              decide whether race actually bore on the decision to
              terminate Mitten.
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        22                      Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

        Lockheed-Martin, 644 F.3d at 1345-46 (footnotes omitted). The
        majority correctly notes that the Court started the paragraph by
        saying that the matrix “strengthens the reasonableness of the
        inference” created by the motive and bad act evidence. Id. at 1345.

        But the rest of the paragraph stands alone. Most importantly, the
        Court says that (a) the inclusion of race in the matrix, plus (b)
        Lockheed-Martin’s inability to explain why race was included in the
        matrix, “yields an unavoidable inference that the employee’s race
        impacted the discipline determination, and it is a jury’s province to
        decide whether race actually bore on the decision to terminate
        Mitten.” Id. at 1346. In other words, adding race to the
        decisionmaker’s document created the “unavoidable inference,”
        not the added motive and bad act evidence.

        Not only does Ossmann have similar documentary evidence; he
        has stronger documentary evidence. Lockheed-Martin’s matrix
        noted race with one letter. Id. at 1336. Lockheed-Martin did not
        have a policy that told decisionmakers how to use race, and the
        man who created the matrix testiﬁed that he added race “as merely
        a decision of personal convenience, intended to aid his putative
        future reporting of that information to external authorities” and
        that “it was understood that Lockheed’s principal decision-makers
        would ‘close one eye to the race entry’ when looking at the
        ‘matrix.’” Id. (brackets omitted).

             Meredith’s EEO Analysis form, in contrast, tells us that Bock
        was to consider Ossmann’s race and his coworkers’ race to
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        22-11462                Maze, J., dissenting                       23

        determine whether granting the local station’s request would
        disparately impact racial group balance. As discussed, the Supreme
        Court held in Ricci that disparate impact review of personnel
        decisions violates Title VII, absent circumstances not present here.
        And the Supreme Court just reaﬃrmed that “[o]utright racial
        balancing is patently unconstitutional.” Students for Fair Admissions,
        143 S. Ct. at 2172 (quotations omitted).

        If Lockheed-Martin’s inclusion of race into the decisionmakers’
        documents without instructions on how to consider race created
        “an unavoidable inference that the employee’s race impacted the
        discipline determination,” Lockheed-Martin, 644 F.3d at 1346, then
        Meredith’s insertion of race into the EEO Analysis with
        instructions to use race for disparate impact review creates the
        same unavoidable inference.
                                        IV.
               I agree with most of the majority’s opinion. I agree with the
        majority’s portrait of Ossmann as an unsympathetic plaintiﬀ who
        likely earned his fate. I agree that the evidence suggests that
        Ossmann’s station managers wanted to ﬁre him because he would
        not stop harassing women, not because of his race. And if the
        decision to ﬁre Ossmann stopped at the local station, I would join
        the majority’s opinion in full.
                But the decision to ﬁre Ossmann did not stop at the local
        level; it ended at corporate HR. And corporate wasn’t satisﬁed
        knowing that Ossmann sexually harassed women; corporate
        needed to know Ossmann’s race, and everyone else’s race, so that
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        24                      Maze, J., dissenting               22-11462

        corporate could determine whether ﬁring Ossmann would
        negatively impact racial group balance. Corporate’s injection of
        race for this purpose creates a reasonable inference—or, as the
        Court put it in Lockheed-Martin, an unavoidable inference—that
        Ossmann did not receive “the same right” that coworkers of
        another race would have received if Bock opened their ﬁle instead.
        42 U.S.C. § 1981.
               Whether Bock would have reached a diﬀerent decision if the
        races were changed is a genuine issue of material fact that only a
        jury can decide. Because the majority will not let the jury decide, I
        respectfully dissent.