Court Opinion

ID: 9957663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-04 19:01:26.381712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:32.840867
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-12698    Document: 26-1      Date Filed: 04/04/2024   Page: 1 of 19

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-12698
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        MARECIA S. BELL,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS,

                                                     Defendant-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 8:20-cv-01274-VMC-CPT
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

        Before ROSENBAUM, NEWSOM, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Marecia Bell, a Black woman, has been a nurse at the James
        A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa (the “Tampa VA Hospital”)
        for decades. She claims that, after she took a promotion in October
        2016, she was subjected to race discrimination and retaliation for
        her protected equal-employment-opportunity (“EEO”) activity.
        According to Bell, that retaliation continued even after she trans-
        ferred to another position at the hospital to escape the discrimina-
        tory treatment. The district court granted summary judgment in
        favor of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, and Bell appeals. After
        careful review, we affirm.
                                          I.
               In the light most favorable to Bell, the relevant facts are as
        follows. In October 2016, Bell was promoted to a supervisory po-
        sition as an assistant nurse manager/staffing coordinator in the
        Tampa VA Hospital’s spinal-cord-injury unit (“SCI”). Although as-
        sistant nurse managers were usually supervised by a nurse man-
        ager, Bell reported directly to Julia Lewis, the assistant chief nurse
        at SCI.
                Bell knew when she was hired that “there were a lot of lead-
        ership and administrative leadership duties that [Assistant Chief
        Nurse Lewis] needed [Bell] to assist her with.” Among those du-
        ties, Bell made staffing assignments for the SCI “Resource Pool,” a
        group of nursing staff members who “float[ed]” to the ten subunits
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        22-12698                Opinion of the Court                            3

        and six clinics within SCI. The Resource Pool had nine to fifteen
        members during the period relevant to this case.
               Within a month of Bell’s start in her position, SCI’s interim
        chief nurse, Kathy Michel, announced that Bell would take over
        “direct supervision” of the Resource Pool. That was a “shock” to
        Bell because “that’s not what [she] was hired to do.” Lewis had
        told her she would not be directly supervising staff, and according
        to Bell, no other assistant nurse managers at the Tampa VA were a
        “directly supervising[,] first line supervisor of any staff.” Nor had
        an assistant nurse manager been responsible for the Resource Pool
        before Bell; prior supervisors had all been at least nurse managers.
        Lewis agreed that Bell’s position as originally conceived did not in-
        clude these duties, but that the change “came out of [Lewis’s] being
        overwhelmed after [multiple] management people left.”
               After the announcement, Bell asked Assistant Chief Nurse
        Lewis and interim Chief Nurse Michel if they were going to
        “change [her] position to a nurse manager’s position and give [her]
        the pay for directly supervising staff.” Lewis and Michel assured
        Bell that a promotion and pay raise were in the works and just
        needed to be processed by Laureen Doloresco, the chief nurse ex-
        ecutive at the Tampa VA Hospital. Later, Lewis and Michel told
        Bell that Doloresco was waiting for a new chief nurse to be hired
        at SCI. 1 After Mary Alice Rippman was hired as SCI’s permanent
        chief nurse, though, “it never happened.”

        1 Assistant Chief Nurse Lewis denied promising to convert Bell to a nurse-

        manager position or discussing that matter with Nurse Executive Doloresco,
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        4                          Opinion of the Court                        22-12698

                In December 2016, Bell began experiencing disrespectful,
        demeaning, and hostile behavior from one of the nurse managers
        at SCI. Bell contacted the equal employment opportunity (“EEO”)
        office in April 2017 based on the nurse manager’s behavior, and she
        later submitted a formal complaint. Bell also documented in-
        stances of the complained-of behavior to SCI management in
        emails in February, April, June, and August of 2017. In particular,
        Bell copied Nurse Executive Doloresco on the June 2017 email,
        which referenced her prior EEO complaint. The problematic
        nurse manager eventually was moved to a position elsewhere in
        the Tampa VA.
               Meanwhile, in June 2017, Chief Nurse Rippman reassigned
        Bell to work night shifts several times a week, from 3:30 p.m. to
        midnight. According to Rippman, this reassignment was part of an
        attempt to have a supervisor present during the night shift. While
        working the night shift, when Chief Nurse Rippman and Assistant
        Chief Nurse Lewis were not present, Bell was “in charge of the en-
        tire building.” Other assistant nurse managers were also required
        to work the evening shift. The job posting for Bell’s position listed
        the work schedule as 3:30 p.m. to midnight.

        and she testified that the VA “hiring system require[d] that it be a competitive
        position.” We credit Bell’s version of her conversations with Lewis for pur-
        poses of this appeal. See Patterson v. Ga. Pac., LLC, 38 F.4th 1336, 1350–51 (11th
        Cir. 2022) (“[W]hen conflicts arise between the facts evidenced by the parties,
        we must credit [the non-movant’s] version.”). Still, Doloresco’s testimony
        that she was not aware of any proposal or request to convert Bell to a nurse-
        manager position stands unrebutted.
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        22-12698               Opinion of the Court                         5

                At other times, Bell objected to Chief Nurse Rippman’s
        treatment of SCI nursing staff. Bell described two instances where
        Rippman ordered her to assign Black nurses on “light duty” status
        to janitorial work, such as removing gum from underneath bedside
        tables or cleaning the staff refrigerator, while a white nurse was as-
        signed to answer phones.
               Despite problems with a nurse manager, and occasional dis-
        putes with Chief Nurse Rippman, Bell excelled in her position. Bell
        received an “outstanding” rating in her performance review for the
        period from October 2016 to September 2017. The performance
        review noted that Bell joined SCI “amid sweeping leadership
        changes.” The review continued in glowing terms:
              [W]ith almost no assistance, she shouldered full re-
              sponsibility for the SCI Resource Pool to include hir-
              ing, coaching / mentoring, educating and even disci-
              plining staff when needed. Further, when needed,
              she transitioned to work evening shifts routinely to
              provide a stabilizing leadership presence in-house
              during that work time. Due to her efforts, many staff
              members have commented that the work environ-
              ment on that shift has greatly improved.
               Although she excelled at her job, Bell increasingly felt that
        SCI management was taking advantage of her, discriminating
        against her based on race, and retaliating against her for filing EEO
        complaints. Hoping to escape what she viewed as a hostile envi-
        ronment, Bell applied for a staff position at another Tampa VA
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        6                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

        Hospital unit, the home-based primary care unit (“HBPC”), in Jan-
        uary 2018.
               Bell was not one of the candidates selected by the interview-
        ing panel for the HBPC position, and the interviewers designated
        no alternates. After one of the selected candidates dropped out,
        though, Tammie Terrell, a Black woman and the nurse manager
        of HBPC, offered Bell the position, and Bell accepted. Dr. June Le-
        land, the medical director of HBPC and a member of the interview-
        ing panel, objected that the interviewers should have been permit-
        ted to make the decision, but Human Resources determined that
        the selection was within Terrell’s power and that Bell was validly
        hired.
               Meanwhile, Bell continued to work at SCI in her assistant-
        nurse-manager/staffing-coordinator role. In early March 2018,
        Bell learned that she would be reassigned to an SCI subunit, SCI-
        D, under the supervision of Lynette Carballo, a nurse manager.
        The plan was for Bell to retain her role leading the Resource Pool,
        with Carballo acting as the “second line supervisor.” Chief Nurse
        Rippman testified that the change was intended to standardize the
        reporting structure for assistant nurse managers and to give Bell
        experience running a discrete SCI unit, which would help her on
        the path to becoming a nurse manager.
              But Bell viewed the transfer as part of a pattern of race dis-
        crimination and retaliation, as well as an attempt to undermine her
        claim for nurse-manager pay. Bell met with Nurse Executive
        Doloresco and asked to be removed from the SCI unit, stating that
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        22-12698               Opinion of the Court                         7

        she was being “retaliated against for filing an EEO complaint and
        not following” Chief Nurse Rippman’s direction with respect to an
        employee investigation. Bell filed a formal EEOC complaint in
        March 2018.
               The next month, Bell left SCI and started as a registered
        nurse at HBPC. The usual practice at HBPC was to assign nurses
        to patients near where they lived, to cut down on travel time. But
        according to Bell, she was assigned patients further from her than
        was ordinary, in both Lakeland and South Hillsborough Counties,
        and additional clinics. Terrell made the staffing decisions in collab-
        oration with Dr. Leland. Bell was reassigned multiple times when
        white nurses living closer to her patients joined HBPC. Dr. Leland
        participated in the reassignment and said it was to balance patient
        caseloads.
              Bell was “stressed to the max” working for HBPC. Her hus-
        band had multiple surgeries planned for 2019, and Bell herself de-
        veloped stress-related medical issues for which she had surgery in
        January 2019 and June 2019. Plus, Bell planned to pursue further
        education to become a nurse practitioner.
                In January 2019, Bell requested a move to part time, effective
        August 2019. She also reached out to another department to trans-
        fer to a part-time position. Raina Rochon, HBPC’s chief nurse, de-
        nied Bell’s request, stating that no part-time positions were availa-
        ble at HBPC or would be created. And the transfer never went
        forward.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

               In June 2019, in lieu of seeking a part-time position, Bell re-
        quested a leave of absence, or leave without pay (“LWOP”), from
        August 2019 to August 2020. She discussed her reasons for this re-
        quest, including her and her husband’s medical needs, in detail with
        Chief Nurse Rochon. In a memorandum to Human Resources,
        Rochon recommended the denial of Bell’s request for LWOP be-
        cause of its effect on patient caseloads. Other Tampa VA manage-
        ment, including Nurse Executive Doloresco and Hospital Director
        Joe Battle, signed off on Rochon’s recommendation, and Bell’s re-
        quest was denied on July 31, 2019.
               Bell learned of the denial of her LWOP request shortly after
        returning from a one-month period of Family and Medical Leave
        Act (“FMLA”) leave. When she returned to work, her patients had
        been assigned to other nurses. She spoke with another employee
        who had been informed Bell was not coming back.
               Bell again initiated contact with the EEO office, and she
        agreed to mediate her request for LWOP. At a mediation held in
        November 2019, Hospital Director Battle told Bell he would ap-
        prove her LWOP request if she dropped all of her EEO complaints
        against the Agency. Bell told him, “Absolutely not.”
               Bell was absent from work from August 2019 to June 2020.
        After exhausting her FMLA leave, she was marked as absent with-
        out official leave (“AWOL”), and she received multiple letters or-
        dering her to return to work and advising her that her continued
        absence would result in termination. Ultimately, though, Bell was
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        22-12698                Opinion of the Court                          9

        not terminated, suspended, or officially reprimanded when she re-
        turned to work in June 2020.
                                          II.
               This Court reviews the grant of summary judgment de
        novo. Anthony v. Georgia, 69 F.4th 796, 804 (11th Cir. 2023). Sum-
        mary judgment should be granted only if there is no genuine dis-
        pute of material fact, viewing evidence in the light most favorable
        to the non-movant. Id. There is a genuine issue if a reasonable jury
        could return a verdict for the non-movant. Stewart v. Happy Her-
        man’s Cheshire Bridge, Inc., 117 F.3d 1278, 1284–85 (11th Cir. 1997).
        But “[i]f the evidence is merely colorable, or is not significantly pro-
        bative, summary judgment may be granted.” Anderson v. Liberty
        Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249–50 (1986) (citations omitted).
                                          III.
                Title VII provides that “[a]ll personnel actions affecting [fed-
        eral] employees . . . shall be made free from any discrimination
        based on race.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a). We have held that
        § 2000e-16(a) imposes different requirements for discrimination
        claims by federal employees than in other Title VII cases, explain-
        ing that federal personnel actions must not be tainted by differen-
        tial treatment based on a protected characteristic. Babb v. Sec’y,
        Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 992 F.3d 1193, 1198–1200, 1204 (11th Cir.
        2021) (“Babb II”). If “‘discrimination plays any part in the way a
        decision is made,’ then that decision necessarily ‘is not made in a
        way that is untainted by such discrimination.’” Id. at 1199 (quoting
        Babb v. Wilkie, 140 S. Ct. 1168, 1174 (2020) (“Babb I”)).
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

                Therefore, to succeed on a discrimination claim under
        § 2000e-16(a), a federal employee must show that the protected
        characteristic was the but-for cause of differential treatment, but it
        need not be the but-for cause of the ultimate decision. See Buckley
        v. Sec’y of Army, No. 21-12332, 2024 WL 1326503, at *7 (11th Cir.
        Mar. 28, 2024). Rather, the discrimination must merely play a role
        in that decision. Id. Even when there are non-discriminatory rea-
        sons for an adverse employment decision, those reasons do not
        “cancel out the presence, and the taint, of discriminatory consider-
        ations.” Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1204.
               But “even if [Bell] proves that race discrimination tainted the
        decision-making process, she is not necessarily entitled to all reme-
        dies under § 2000e-16(a).” Buckley, 2024 WL 1326503, at *7. If Bell
        proves that race discrimination was a but-for cause of the employ-
        ment decision, she may be entitled to relief from damages caused
        by the employment decision, like compensatory damages and back
        pay. See id. at *8. On the other hand, if Bell proves only that dis-
        crimination “tainted” the decision-making process but that the VA
        would have reached the same employment decision even if no dis-
        crimination tainted the process, she cannot recover relief from
        damages caused by the employment decision. Id. Rather, we
        “begin by considering injunctive or other forward-looking relief.”
        Id. (quoting Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1205 n.8).
              As for Bell’s burden, she may establish discriminatory intent
        through circumstantial evidence, including discriminatory com-
        ments, suspicious timing, arbitrariness in the employer’s actions,
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        22-12698               Opinion of the Court                         11

        pretext in the employer’s rationale, better treatment of similarly
        situated, non-Black employees outside the protected group, and
        similar experiences by Black employees. See Lewis v. City of Union
        City. (Lewis II), 934 F.3d 1169, 1185–86 (11th Cir. 2019); see also
        Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328, 1341–46 (11th
        Cir. 2011).
                                          A.
               Initially, Bell has abandoned certain issues by failing to ade-
        quately raise them on appeal. Ordinarily, issues not “plainly and
        prominently” raised on appeal are deemed abandoned and we will
        consider them. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678,
        680 (11th Cir. 2014). The failure to properly raise an issue for ap-
        peal results in “forfeiture of the issue,” subject to sua sponte review
        by this Court only in “extraordinary circumstances.” United States
        v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 873 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc).
               In her briefing on appeal, Bell argues that a jury could infer
        differential treatment based on race from her evidence of unequal
        pay. But aside from a lone, passing reference to “denied appoint-
        ments, promotions . . . , reassignment . . . and denial of” LWOP,
        she has not developed any argument that race played a role in the
        other employment decisions she raised before the district court.
        She also does not challenge the district court’s ruling that her
        claims of race discrimination arising from her time at HBPC were
        unexhausted.
              Accordingly, other than with respect to her allegedly une-
        qual pay, Bell has forfeited any argument that employment
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

        decisions at SCI—such as her night-shift duties and forced reassign-
        ment to a subordinate position under a nurse manager—were
        tainted by race. She has likewise forfeited any argument that she
        properly exhausted a claim of race discrimination based on events
        at HBPC. See Sapuppo, 739 F.3d at 681 (“We have long held that an
        appellant abandons a claim when he either makes only passing ref-
        erences to it or raises it in a perfunctory manner without support-
        ing arguments and authority.”). And Bell has not shown that “ex-
        traordinary circumstances” excuse her failure to raise these claims.
        Campbell, 26 F.4th at 873. So we do not consider them here.
                                         B.
               Next, no reasonable jury could find, based on this record,
        that the decision to pay Bell only as an assistant nurse manager was
        tainted by differential treatment based on race. See Babb II, 992 F.3d
        at 1199–1200, 1204; Buckley, 2024 WL 1326503, at *7.
               In the light most favorable to Bell, the record shows that,
        shortly after Bell joined SCI as an assistant nurse manager/staffing
        coordinator, she was given new duties as the direct supervisor of a
        group of nurses known the Resource Pool, a job ordinarily per-
        formed by a nurse manager or higher-level position. Bell’s super-
        visors at the time, interim Chief Nurse Michel and Assistant Chief
        Nurse Lewis, promised her a promotion and raise to compensate
        for these new duties. But no paperwork was ever submitted to ef-
        fectuate the change. Instead, in March 2018, after a new chief nurse
        came on board, SCI made the decision to reassign Bell to an SCI
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        22-12698                  Opinion of the Court                               13

        subunit, SCI-D, under Nurse Manager Caballo, while retaining her
        first-line supervisory duties over the Resource Pool.
               Even assuming Bell was not fairly paid for the additional re-
        sponsibilities she shouldered, the record contains no evidence to
        connect Bell’s salary with her race. Bell relies on the fact that she
        was the only Black manager at SCI at the time of the events. But
        she has not identified any other assistant nurse managers, outside
        her protected class, who were paid extra for undertaking additional
        supervisory responsibilities. 2 And there was evidence that other
        assistant nurse managers supervised staff when nurse managers
        were not present, just as Bell did. In addition, no meaningful com-
        parison can be made between Bell and nurse managers at SCI, since
        they were subject to different hiring criteria, had different job titles,
        and were responsible for managing discrete clinical units within
        SCI. Thus, Bell has not identified any evidence of other employees
        from which to draw an inference of differential treatment based on
        race.
               Not only that, but the evidence is otherwise undisputed that
        Bell joined SCI during a period of leadership turnover. Multiple
        members of management, including the chief nurse, had left just
        before Bell was hired, and Bell’s position was intended to help fill
        that leadership gap by reporting directly to the assistant chief nurse
        instead of a nurse manager, like other assistant managers. Her role

        2 The VA handbook’s prescriptive pay increase for nurses in supervisory posi-
        tions does not yield an actual comparator, as Bell did not identify any occasion
        on which someone’s pay was increased in accordance with the provision.
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                    22-12698

        was “somewhat unique” in that respect. That Chief Nurse Ripp-
        man later decided to restructure Bell’s position, standardizing the
        reporting structure, does not, without more, suggest any discrimi-
        natory animus. And Bell does not identify any other suspicious
        timing, ambiguous statements, arbitrariness, or pretext that could
        suggest that racial discrimination played a role in SCI’s failure to
        promote Bell or to give her a raise. See Lewis II, 934 F.3d at 1185–
        86.
               Instead, Bell cites her own testimony that Chief Nurse Ripp-
        man twice assigned Black nurses on light duty to housekeeping du-
        ties, while a white nurse was told to answer phones. 3 Bell also in-
        troduced statements by other employees who felt they had been
        subject to racial discrimination at the Tampa VA.
               Evidence that coworkers in the plaintiff’s protected group
        were discriminated against may be probative of discriminatory in-
        tent. See Goldsmith v. Bagby Elevator Co., Inc., 513 F.3d 1261, 1286
        (11th Cir. 2008). In Goldsmith, for example, we upheld the admis-
        sion of “me too” testimony from coworkers who were subjected
        to the “same supervisor[s]” and the same basic employment deci-
        sion—termination. See id. We reasoned that this evidence was
        probative of the common decisionmaker’s “intent to discriminate,”
        and of the alleged racially hostile work environment. Id.

        3 Bell also points to alleged sexual comments Chief Nurse Rippman made to

        others. But whatever else may be said about these sexual comments, we fail
        to see how they are probative of race discrimination.
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        22-12698                 Opinion of the Court                             15

               In contrast to the evidence in Goldsmith, though, Bell’s evi-
        dence is not similar enough to support an inference that Bell was
        subjected to differential treatment based on race. The other em-
        ployees who felt they had been subjected to racial discrimination
        at the Tampa VA were employed in different units and had differ-
        ent supervisors, so no inference can be drawn about the deci-
        sionmakers in Bell’s case: interim Chief Nurse Michel, Chief Nurse
        Rippman, and Assistant Chief Nurse Lewis. 4 See id. While Bell’s
        testimony about discriminatory light-duty assignments involved
        Rippman, these incidents involved substantially different circum-
        stances and employment decisions than are at issue here. See id.;
        cf. Smith, 644 F.3d at 1344 (indicating that “evidence of behavior
        toward or comments directed at other employees in the same pro-
        tected group” must be “closely related to the plaintiff’s circum-
        stances” to show discriminatory intent). Accordingly, we cannot
        say that this evidence supports a finding that the pay and promo-
        tion decisions were tainted by “discrimination based on race.” 42
        U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a); see Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249–50.
                For these reasons, Bell has not created a genuine issue of ma-
        terial fact as to whether SCI’s decision to pay her only as an assis-
        tant nurse manager was tainted by differential treatment based on

        4 Bell suggests that Nurse Executive Doloresco is the common thread that con-

        nects her experience to the experiences of these other employees. But
        Doloresco provided unrebutted testimony that she was not aware of any re-
        quest to convert Bell’s position to nurse manager or to offer her more pay.
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                 22-12698

        race. See Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1199–1200, 1204; Buckley, 2024 WL
        1326503, at *7.
                                         IV.
               Title VII also protects federal employees from retaliation for
        ﬁling charges of discrimination. Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1203 (“[D]is-
        crimination, as used in Title VII’s federal-sector provision, by its
        own terms includes retaliation.” (quotation marks omitted)). A
        plaintiﬀ bringing a retaliation claim, whether based on discrete acts
        or a retaliatory hostile work environment, must show that “the
        conduct complained of ‘well might have dissuaded a reasonable
        worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’”
        Tonkyro v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans Aﬀs., 995 F.3d 828, 836 (11th Cir.
        2021) (quoting Monaghan v. Worldpay US, Inc., 955 F.3d 855, 862–63
        (11th Cir. 2020)). She must also satisfy the “more lenient causation
        standard” as outlined in Babb I—that is, that the conduct com-
        plained of was tainted by diﬀerential treatment based on her pro-
        tected activity. Id. at 835.
               Here, the evidence, construed in Bell’s favor, does not sup-
        port a reasonable inference that retaliation played a part in the ac-
        tions of which Bell complains. As the district court explained, SCI’s
        failure to change Bell’s position to that of a nurse manager or offer
        her higher pay began well before Bell initiated her first EEO com-
        plaint in April 2017, so these failures cannot reasonably be consid-
        ered causally related to that protected activity. See, e.g., Cotton v.
        Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., 434 F.3d 1227, 1233 (11th Cir.
        2006) (holding that if alleged retaliatory conduct occurred before
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        22-12698                   Opinion of the Court                                17

        the employee engaged in protected activity, the two events cannot
        be causally connected).
               Likewise, the decision to realign Bell’s position in early
        2018—effectively ending any chance of a promotion or additional
        pay—was made before she initiated her second EEO complaint.
        And these events occurred nearly one year after SCI management
        became aware of the first EEO complaint about an allegedly hostile
        work environment created by another nurse manager, and approx-
        imately six months after Bell’s last email to management about
        those same issues in August 2017. That time lag is too long to sug-
        gest causation. See Thomas v. Cooper Lighting, Inc., 506 F.3d 1361,
        1364 (11th Cir. 2007) (holding that a three- to four-month delay be-
        tween the EEO action and the adverse action does not suggest cau-
        sation).
               Bell contends that the retaliation continued once she trans-
        ferred to HBPC, but she has offered no evidence to show that the
        decision makers at HBPC were “aware of the protected conduct”
        at the time of their challenged actions. 5 See Brungart v. BellSouth

        5 Bell faults the district court for failing to consider her testimony that SCI

        Chief Nurse Rippman, SCI Assistant Chief Nurse Lewis, and HBPC Chief
        Nurse Roshon told HBPC Nurse Manager Carballo to retract her reference for
        Bell and “make it bad” in connection with her transfer to HBPC. Bell never
        raised this matter at summary judgment, though, so the court was not re-
        quired to consider it. See Resolution Trust Corp. v. Dunmar Corp., 43 F.3d 587,
        599 (11th Cir. 1995) (“There is no burden upon the district court to distill every
        potential argument that could be made based upon the materials before it on
        summary judgment.”).
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        18                       Opinion of the Court                     22-12698

        Telecomms., Inc., 231 F.3d 791, 799 (11th Cir. 2000) (“In order to
        show the two things were not entirely unrelated, the plaintiff must
        generally show that the decision maker was aware of the protected
        conduct at the time of the adverse employment action.”). There is
        no evidence that Dr. Leland—who objected to Bell’s placement in
        the program and then later gave Bell less desirable assignments—
        had any knowledge of Bell’s earlier EEO activity. There is similarly
        no evidence that Chief Nurse Rochon—who denied Bell’s request
        for a part-time position or LWOP—was aware of Bell’s prior EEO
        activity at the time of her decision. Because “[a] decision maker
        cannot have been motivated to retaliate by something unknown to
        [her],” Brungart, 231 F.3d at 799, Bell has not shown that the deci-
        sionmakers at HBPC were motivated even in part by retaliation for
        her protected activity.
               Bell speculates that Nurse Executive Doloresco probably
        told Dr. Leland about this activity, or that Doloresco otherwise had
        a hand in these decisions apart from simply signing oﬀ on Rochon’s
        denial of LWOP, but such speculation is insuﬃcient to defeat sum-
        mary judgment. 6 See Cordoba v. Dillard’s, Inc., 419 F.3d 1169, 1181
        (11th Cir. 2005) (stating that “[s]peculation does not create a genu-
        ine issue of fact” for purposes of summary judgment). No reason-
        able jury could conclude from the scattered bits and pieces of

        6 Accordingly, Bell’s evidence about Nurse Executive Doloresco’s alleged his-

        tory of “EEO hostility” and “EEO retaliatory animus” is also insufficient to
        establish a genuine issue of material fact in this case.
USCA11 Case: 22-12698        Document: 26-1         Date Filed: 04/04/2024         Page: 19 of 19

        22-12698                   Opinion of the Court                               19

        evidence Bell has assembled that Doloresco was wielding inﬂuence
        behind the scenes to blacklist Bell.
                Bell also cites her change to the night shift and the warning
        letters she received for failing to report to work after her request
        for LWOP was denied. But the evidence does not show that these
        actions were causally related to her protected activity or that they
        would dissuade a reasonable worker from reporting discrimina-
        tion. See Tonkyro, 995 F.3d at 836. The evening shift was advertised
        in the job posting for Bell’s position, and other assistant managers
        were also required to work that shift. And it is undisputed that Bell
        was absent without authorized leave when she received the warn-
        ing letters and that she was never disciplined for that period of ab-
        sence from work.
                For these reasons, we cannot say the evidence, even viewed
        in the light most favorable to Bell, would support a reasonable ver-
        dict in Bell’s favor on her retaliation claims, whether based on a dis-
        crete employment action or hostile work environment. 7
                                               V.
                In sum, we aﬃrm the grant of summary judgment to the
        Secretary on Bell’s Title VII claims of race discrimination and retal-
        iation.
                AFFIRMED.

        7 Bell has not raised on appeal, and so has abandoned, any argument that Hos-

        pital Director Battle’s offer to settle her EEO complaints in exchange for grant-
        ing her request for LWOP was retaliatory. See Sapuppo, 739 F.3d at 680.