Court Opinion

ID: 9955638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-28 21:00:51.227225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:09.125235
License: Public Domain

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                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 21-12332
                           ____________________

        ERIKA BUCKLEY,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        SECRETARY OF THE ARMY,

                                                    Defendants-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Middle District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 4:19-cv-00049-CDL
                           ____________________
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        2                         Opinion of the Court                      21-12332

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, ROSENBAUM and ABUDU, Cir-
        cuit Judges.
        ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:
              Stealing patients and questioning the parentage of a col-
        league’s children might sound like something out of Grey’s Anat-
        omy, the twenty-season television drama about the professional
        and personal lives of hospital staff 1—not conduct expected at a local
        hospital in real life. Yet Erika Buckley, a Black woman and speech
        pathologist, alleges her former colleagues at Martin Army Hospital
        engaged in these sorts of antics and more because of her race.
               Buckley, who left her job after being advised she was going
        to be dismissed, sued the Secretary of the Army under 42 U.S.C. §
        2000e-16(a), the federal-sector provision of Title VII, alleging,
        among other claims, race-based disparate treatment, race-based
        hostile work environment, traditional retaliation, and hostile-
        work-environment retaliation. The Secretary moved for summary
        judgment, and the district court granted that motion on all counts.
        On appeal, Buckley contests the grant of summary judgment on
        these four claims. After careful consideration and with the benefit
        of oral argument, we affirm as to the retaliation claims. But we

        1  Grey’s Anatomy: Wishin’ and Hopin’ (ABC television broadcast Feb. 1, 2007)
        (Izzie admits to stealing patients from the emergency room for the clinic);
        Grey’s Anatomy: Life on Mars? (ABC television broadcast Mar. 12, 2020) (reveal-
        ing the father of Amelia’s baby).
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        21-12332                   Opinion of the Court                             3

        vacate on Buckley’s traditional-hostile-work environment claim
        and vacate in part on her race-based disparate-treatment claim.
                         I.        FACTUAL BACKGROUND

               Buckley is a Black woman.2 She worked as a speech
        pathologist for the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic (“the Clinic”) at
        Martin Army Hospital from 2010 to 2017. The Clinic treated ac-
        tive-duty military members and their families for mild and moder-
        ate head injuries. Buckley was the only speech pathologist and the
        only Black female provider at the Clinic.

              The Clinic followed the Secretary’s chain of command. For
        Buckley, that meant she had two supervisors: Major Yaoyao Zhu,
        her ﬁrst-level supervisor, and Major John Miller, her second-level
        supervisor. Major Zhu reported to Major Miller.
                              A.     Problems at the Clinic
               Buckley alleges that during her time at the Clinic, her super-
        visors and several other colleagues mistreated her. Buckley’s com-
        plaints of mistreatment fall into three major categories: her col-
        leagues (1) diverted white patients from her care; (2) drummed up
        complaints about her to justify their patient-diversion scheme and

        2 Because this is an appeal from an order granting summary judgment, we

        recite facts in the light most favorable to Buckley, the non-moving party, and
        we draw all reasonable inferences in her favor. Ramji v. Hosp. Housekeeping
        Sys., LLC, 992 F.3d 1233, 1237 (11th Cir. 2021).
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        4                        Opinion of the Court                    21-12332

        other mistreatment; and (3) engaged in other race-based harassing
        conduct.
               We begin with the patient-diversion scheme. As part of his
        duties, Dr. Brian Ribeiro, a primary-care physician at the Clinic, re-
        ferred patients for neuropsychological testing. In turn, Dr. Felix
        Ortiz, a neuropsychologist at the clinic, then referred some of these
        patients, including white patients, to Buckley for speech language
        therapy. Knowing Buckley’s schedule, Dr. Ortiz thought that Buck-
        ley had the capacity to see all the patients he referred to her.
               But after white patients had an initial consultation with
        Buckley, Dr. Ribeiro often asserted that the white patients had com-
        plained about her. Dr. Ribeiro used these complaints to justify re-
        ferring Buckley’s white patients to Robert Cooper, a white male
        occupational therapist at the Clinic, or to other oﬀ-base providers.
        Dr. Ribeiro never claimed that Black patients complained about
        Buckley, nor did he divert them from her care.
                Because he had often treated and referred the patients him-
        self, Dr. Ortiz was aware of the ethnicity of the patients who lodged
        complaints against Buckley. He noticed a “consistent” pattern in
        these patients. According to Dr. Ortiz, all of them had “the same
        traits”: that is, they were about the same age, of the same “eth-
        nia,” 3 and flowed from the same primary physician, Dr. Ribeiro.

        3 We understand this term to refer to “etnia,” a Portuguese noun that means

        “the fact of belonging to a particular ethnic group.” etnia, CAMBRIDGE
        DICTIONARY         (last      visited        Mar.       28,      2024)
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        21-12332                   Opinion of the Court                                5

        And “[m]ultiple times,” a patient he had referred to Buckley was
        later “sent off post” or “sent to occupational therapy without any
        other reason,” against Dr. Ortiz’s recommendation.4
               To justify this patient-diversion scheme, Buckley alleges, Dr.
        Ribeiro and Ute Chavers, a nurse care manager, encouraged white
        male patients to complain about Buckley. To be sure, Buckley
        acknowledges that Clinic patients were often “argumentative,
        combative, and defensive” because of their brain trauma. But she
        asserts that Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers “enabled” or augmented

        https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/portuguese-english/etnia
        [https://perma.cc/P79K-JZAJ].
        4  In the district court, the Secretary lodged a hearsay objection to Dr. Ortiz’s
        testimony about Dr. Ribeiro’s alleged diversion of patients from Buckley. The
        Secretary asserted that this testimony was hearsay because Dr. Ortiz’s
        “knowledge [was allegedly] based on his conversations with Plaintiff, not his
        firsthand knowledge.” On appeal, the Secretary does not raise any hearsay
        issues, so he has abandoned the issue. See United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th
        860, 871 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (“Typically, issues not raised in the initial
        brief on appeal are deemed abandoned.”). But in any case, Dr. Ortiz’s testi-
        mony reflects that he knew firsthand of the flow of patients (including refer-
        rals) and participated in announcements and discussions about patient care at
        weekly team meetings. And as to the substance of the patient complaints, our
        precedent provides that a court may consider a hearsay statement if it can be
        reduced to admissible evidence at trial. Macuba v. Deboer, 193 F.3d 1316, 1323
        (11th Cir. 1999). In this case, the patients identified by name in depositions
        could testify to the substance of their own complaints or the disparaging state-
        ments Dr. Ribeiro allegedly made to them about Buckley. See Jones v. UPS
        Ground Freight, 683 F.3d 1283, 1294 (11th Cir. 2012) (considering whether iden-
        tifiable witnesses had personal knowledge of alleged racial statements when
        deciding whether hearsay could be reduced to admissible form at trial).
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                  21-12332

        negative patient perception of Buckley. In particular, Buckley al-
        leges that the two made disparaging comments about her directly
        to white male patients. For instance, Buckley asserts, Dr. Ribeiro
        told a patient that Buckley had “angry [B]lack woman syndrome”
        and that the patient “had to be careful” with her. Buckley com-
        plains these remarks invoked a common and offensive stereotype
        about Black women.
               Besides poisoning the well, Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers alleg-
        edly also solicited trumped-up patient complaints and maintained
        them, along with meeting memoranda, in detailed records about
        Buckley. And they did this even though neither was Buckley’s su-
        pervisor, neither had a duty to do so, and neither kept records on
        any other staff member at the Clinic.
                So for instance, if a patient complained of “a bad experience”
        with Buckley, Chavers “would have them elaborate on why” and
        note their complaints in a personal memorandum and the patient’s
        chart. Rather than directing patients to follow the hospital’s official
        complaint process, Chavers informed the chief and Dr. Ribeiro of
        the complaint. Then, Dr. Ribeiro determined whether the pa-
        tient’s complaint warranted a second opinion or a referral away
        from Buckley’s care. Buckley learned of patient diversions at the
        weekly team multidisciplinary (known as “multi-D”) meetings.
        During these meetings, Clinic providers, including Dr. Ribeiro, Dr.
        Ortiz, Buckley, and her supervisors, met, discussed, and collabo-
        rated on patient care decisions.
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        21-12332                  Opinion of the Court                              7

               Besides Chavers’s notes, Dr. Ribeiro also kept memoranda
        on Buckley that he placed in her personnel ﬁle. One memoran-
        dum, dated July 2014 and created by Dr. Ribeiro, described a con-
        versation in which Dr. Ribeiro complained to Buckley that she had
        improperly disclosed a patient’s protected health information by
        copying individuals outside the department on an email. Dr. Ri-
        beiro advised Buckley not to disclose protected health information
        to people outside the department again. We refer to Dr. Ribeiro’s
        warning as the “2014 HIPAA Warning” and to Buckley’s activities
        that preceded that Warning as the “2014 HIPAA Incident.” 5
               Despite Dr. Ribeiro’s and Chavers’s ﬁles on Buckley, no pa-
        tient ever used the Clinic’s formal complaint process to lodge a
        complaint against Buckley. Still, the informal complaints Dr. Ri-
        beiro and Chavers collected led to a noticeable decrease in Buck-
        ley’s patient load compared to those of her colleagues, particularly
        Cooper. They also caused Buckley to be “on pins and needles all
        the time” with her patients because she believed that Dr. Ribeiro
        and Chavers had predisposed them to give her a hard time and
        complain. According to Dr. Ortiz, during multi-D team meetings,
        the complaint-referral practice came up as “an ongoing area of con-
        cern,” and the situation was shared with Major Zhu. Buckley also

        5 As relevant here, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of

        1996 (“HIPAA”), Pub. L. No. 104-191, 110 Stat. 1936, generally prohibits dis-
        closure of patients’ private healthcare information to anyone other than the
        patient and her authorized representatives, unless the patient consents.
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        testiﬁed in her deposition that she complained to Majors Miller and
        Zhu about the practice.
               Aside from the patient-diversion and complaint-solicitation
        schemes, Buckley alleges other mistreatment. At weekly multi-D
        meetings, for instance, Buckley says Dr. Ribeiro acted dismissively
        towards her, interrupting her more than he did Cooper. And at a
        2016 meeting of Dr. Ribeiro, Buckley, and a nurse, in which the
        group discussed a patient’s scheduling conﬂict, Dr. Ribeiro stepped
        into the hallway to yell at Buckley. He raised his hands and said
        angrily, “[A]re you happy now, Erika?” The exchange left Buckley
        visibly shaken.
               In another meeting that Major Miller, Dr. Ribeiro, Buckley,
        and Cooper attended, Cooper explained a plan to transition a cog-
        nitive skills-building group Buckley had created, to another pro-
        vider. In characterizing the work involved in running the group,
        Cooper said that “a monkey could do that job.” Dr. Ribeiro agreed,
        remarking, “Yeah, a monkey could do it.” Major Miller, who was
        there for both comments, did not react to them. Buckley com-
        plains that these comments were racial slurs.
               In yet another incident, in March 2017, because of a locked
        door, Buckley arrived a few minutes late for a meeting where she
        was scheduled to make a presentation. In front of the rest of the
        Clinic providers at the meeting, Major Zhu reprimanded Buckley.
        She said, “[Y]ou should have been here on time. Why didn’t you
        have your stuﬀ together[?] Didn’t you know we were having this
        meeting?” Buckley felt humiliated, and she could not recall
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        21-12332                 Opinion of the Court                      9

        another instance when a provider was reprimanded in front of the
        entire department for being late. In Buckley’s view, Major Zhu’s
        reprimand invoked the “colored people time” stereotype that Black
        people are late, and that the comment reﬂected racial animus.
               And one day in Buckley’s oﬃce, Major Zhu, referring to a
        photograph of Buckley’s children, asked Buckley whether her chil-
        dren had the same father. Buckley complained to Major Miller.
        But rather than taking action himself, Major Miller merely advised
        Major Zhu to address Buckley’s concerns because of the chain of
        command.
               Based on these events, Buckley ﬁled four complaints with
        the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”): one
        in December 2014 and three between January and November 2016.
        Dr. Ribeiro became aware that he was the subject of an EEO com-
        plaint in 2016, after the EEOC contacted him. Major Miller and
        Major Zhu also learned of Buckley’s EEO activity, though at un-
        speciﬁed times. Dr. Ortiz noted that the complaint-referral pattern
        leading Buckley to receive fewer patients continued after Buckley’s
        EEO activity.
                            B.      Buckley’s Removal
                On April 25, 2017, Buckley emailed Major Miller, Major
        Zhu, Beverly Simmons (a civilian HIPAA oﬃcer under the Secre-
        tary), and Barbara Parker (Buckley’s union representative who did
        not work for the Secretary), among others, about a particular pa-
        tient’s chart. Buckley’s email complained that Chavers wrote a
        negative and false note about her in the patient’s chart, and Buckley
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        asked that the note be removed. In support of her request, Buckley
        attached the note, including the patient’s chart with the patient’s
        medical information, to the email. Buckley conceded in her testi-
        mony that sending the information to Parker, a non-hospital em-
        ployee, was a “mistake.” We refer to this as the “First 2017 HIPAA
        Incident.”
               Later, Buckley visited her congressman’s oﬃce to complain
        about the same negative note. She took “information” to his oﬃce,
        including the patient’s medical information, and people in the of-
        ﬁce made copies of it. Buckley did not think that giving the patient
        records to the congressman was a HIPAA violation because it was
        protected whistleblower activity. We refer to this event as the “Sec-
        ond 2017 HIPAA Incident.”
               Simmons investigated the April 25th email for an alleged
        HIPAA violation. During the investigation, Major Zhu asked Sim-
        mons if she could “get” Buckley on a HIPAA violation. Majors
        Miller and Zhu also told Simmons that Buckley had already been
        investigated for a HIPAA violation, even though the 2014 HIPAA
        Incident did not result in an oﬃcial investigation. In May 2017,
        Simmons determined that “a HIPAA violation [based on the April
        25th email] cannot be substantiated.”
                In response, Majors Miller and Zhu spoke to Simmons’s
        chief, Frederick Davis, an oﬃcer in the Secretary’s Patient Admin-
        istration Division. Simmons stated in an EEO hearing that in all of
        the HIPAA investigations she has done, she has “never seen man-
        agement go after a staﬀ member like they did” with Buckley.
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        21-12332              Opinion of the Court                      11

               About a month later, Anne Norfolk, who worked in legal,
        directed Simmons to change her ﬁnding to “substantiated” because
        Norfolk determined Simmons’s original conclusion was incorrect
        and, in fact, Buckley had committed a HIPAA violation. Simmons
        changed the ﬁnding and sent her new conclusion to the chief, Da-
        vis. On June 1, 2017, Davis determined that the April 25th email
        constituted a “substantiated breach” of HIPAA.
               Soon after, in June 2017, Major Zhu wrote a memorandum
        recommending that the Secretary remove Buckley from federal
        service for HIPAA violations. In support, she speciﬁcally noted the
        2014 HIPAA Warning and Incident and the First 2017 HIPAA Inci-
        dent. Major Zhu then wrote Buckley a letter informing her of her
        proposed removal from federal service, not sooner than 30 days
        from her receipt of the letter.
              In response, Buckley ﬁled her ﬁfth EEO complaint, alleging
        that Majors Zhu and Miller had discriminated against her based on
        her race, among other protected characteristics, and that Major
        Zhu’s proposal to remove her was retaliatory.
                The next month, on August 17, 2017, Major Miller placed
        Buckley on administrative leave pending investigation into the Sec-
        ond 2017 HIPAA Incident. It didn’t take long for Davis to ﬁnd that
        Buckley had committed a second substantiated HIPAA violation
        when she gave a patient’s medical information to her congressman.
        And by the ﬁrst week in September, Major Zhu sent Buckley a let-
        ter in which she informed Buckley that she had proposed Buckley’s
        removal from the federal service based on the HIPAA violations.
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                  21-12332

        Buckley timely ﬁled a written rebuttal to her proposed removal,
        and Major Miller heard her oral reply.
               On October 19, 2017, Major Miller sustained Major Zhu’s
        decision to remove Buckley from federal service based on the two
        substantiated HIPAA violations, which he noted also constituted
        violations of department regulations. Among other considera-
        tions, Major Miller found that Buckley’s First 2017 HIPAA Incident
        was intentional because she knowingly included a union steward,
        Parker, on the email. He said he based her punishment—termina-
        tion of employment—on the Department’s “table of penalties.”
        And though the table of penalties serves as only a guide to disci-
        pline, not a rigid standard, Major Miller asserted, Buckley’s ﬁring
        was consistent with the penalty the Department imposed on other
        employees “for similar oﬀenses.”
               Major Miller’s letter stated that Buckley’s removal would be
        eﬀective on October 21, 2017. Because she wanted to protect her
        professional license, Buckley instead resigned on October 20, 2017.
        The Secretary replaced Buckley with a Black woman in August
        2018.
               According to the Secretary’s human-resources specialist, the
        Secretary disciplined ten Martin Army Community Hospital em-
        ployees for HIPAA violations between 2014 and 2020. These indi-
        viduals included both Black and white employees, and they were
        reprimanded, suspended, and removed for HIPAA violations. The
        parties have not provided details of the violations, their severity, or
        the decision-makers involved.
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        21-12332                  Opinion of the Court                             13

                          II.     PROCEDURAL HISTORY

               In 2019, Buckley sued. As relevant here, Buckley alleged the
        Secretary (1) engaged in race-based disparate treatment; (2) retali-
        ated against her for her protected activity by taking adverse person-
        nel action against her; (3) retaliated against her for her protected
        activity by creating a hostile work environment; and (4) created a
        race-based hostile work environment.

               After discovery, the Secretary moved for summary judgment
        on all of Buckley’s claims. The district court granted the Secre-
        tary’s motion. Buckley v. McCarthy, No. 4:19-CV-49 (CDL), 2021 WL
        2403447 (M.D. Ga. June 11, 2021). On appeal, Buckley challenges
        the district court’s rulings on the four claims we’ve identiﬁed
        above. 6

                          III.    STANDARD OF REVIEW

                We review de novo a grant of summary judgment. Alvarez v.
        Royal Atl. Dev., Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1263 (11th Cir. 2010). In con-
        ducting our review, we apply the same legal standards as the dis-
        trict court. Id. That means we construe the evidence in the light
        most favorable to the non-moving party (Buckley). Id. at 1263–64.
        And if no genuine issue of material fact exists and the moving party

        6 Because Buckley made no arguments about her sex-discrimination claims
        on appeal, we consider them abandoned. Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co.,
        739 F.3d 678, 681–83 (11th Cir. 2014).
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        (the Secretary) is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, we will
        affirm. Id.; FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a).
                The moving party is “entitled to judgment as a matter of
        law” when the nonmoving party “has failed to make a sufficient
        showing on an essential element of her case with respect to which
        she has the burden of proof.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317,
        322–23 (1986). Showing a genuine issue for trial “requires more
        than speculation or a mere scintilla of evidence.” Paylor v. Hartford
        Fire Ins. Co., 748 F.3d 1117, 1122 (11th Cir. 2014). We may affirm
        summary judgment on any ground that the record supports. Bur-
        ton v. Tampa Hous. Auth., 271 F.3d 1274, 1277 (11th Cir. 2001).
                               IV.    DISCUSSION

               As we’ve noted, Buckley challenges the district court’s grant
        of summary judgment on her claims for (1) race-based disparate-
        treatment; (2) race-based hostile work environment; (3) retaliatory
        personnel action for her protected EEO activity; and (4) retaliatory
        hostile work environment. We discuss each claim, in turn, below.
        A.    Buckley submitted enough evidence to establish a race-
              based disparate-treatment claim, based on a theory that
              discrimination tainted the decision-making process.
               Buckley sues over alleged race-based disparate treatment
        when she was a federal employee. So her claim arises under 42
        U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a), Title VII’s federal-sector provision. As rele-
        vant here, that statute provides that “[a]ll personnel actions
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        21-12332                   Opinion of the Court                                 15

        aﬀecting employees . . . in military departments . . . shall be made
        free from any discrimination based on race . . . .” 7 Id. § 2000e-
        16(a).
               Recently, we analyzed this statutory text. In Babb v. Secretary,
        Department of Veterans Aﬀairs, we explained the breadth of the
        phrase “free from any discrimination.” 992 F.3d 1193, 1199 (11th
        Cir. 2021) (“Babb II”). Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in
        Babb v. Wilkie, 589 U.S. 399 (2020) (“Babb I”), we said that “the ‘free
        from any discrimination’ language means that personnel actions
        must be made in ‘a way that is not tainted by diﬀerential treatment
        based on’ a protected characteristic.” Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1199
        (quoting Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406).
               That wording, we continued, “giv[es] special emphasis to
        ‘two matters of syntax.’” Id. (quoting Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406). First,
        “‘based on [race]’ ‘modiﬁes the noun “discrimination,”’ not ‘per-
        sonnel actions.’” Id. (quoting Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406). So to establish
        a violation of the statute, a plaintiﬀ must show that race was “‘a
        but-for cause of discrimination—that is, of diﬀerential treatment—

        7 The private-sector version of this provision appears at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).

        Among other things, that statute makes it “an unlawful employment practice
        for an employer to” take personnel action against an employee or refuse to
        hire an applicant “because of such individual’s race . . . .” Id. § 2000e-2(a)(1).
        In other words, a violation requires a showing that race was the but-for cause
        of the challenged personnel action. Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644, 656
        (2020) (explaining that § 2000e-2(a)(1)’s “‘because of’ test incorporates the
        ‘simple’ and ‘traditional’ standard of but-for causation”); see Babb v. Wilkie, 589
        U.S. 399, 410 (2020) (describing “because of” as “but-for causal language”).
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                  21-12332

        but not necessarily a but-for cause of a personnel action itself.’” Id.
        (quoting Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406). And second, the phrase “free from
        any discrimination” modiﬁes the verb “made.” Id. (quoting Babb I,
        589 U.S. at 406). So race discrimination cannot play any role in the
        way a federal-sector employer makes a decision. Id. Otherwise,
        race discrimination would taint the decision in violation of the stat-
        ute. Id.
                The upshot of these syntactical features is that the law “‘does
        not require proof that an employment decision would have turned
        out diﬀerently if [race] had not been taken into account’—i.e., does
        not require that [race] discrimination be the but-for cause of an ad-
        verse personnel decision.” Id. (quoting Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406). In
        other words, a federal employer violates the law if it allows race
        discrimination to contribute to any personnel action—even if the
        federal employer would have made precisely the same decision had
        it not engaged in race discrimination.
               To clarify this concept, we riﬀ on an example that the Su-
        preme Court used in Babb I. See Babb I, 589 U.S. at 407. Suppose
        that a Black candidate and a non-Black candidate apply for the same
        position, and the federal employer assigns points to each applica-
        tion. In the ﬁrst scenario, the non-Black candidate earns 90 points
        for her application, and the Black candidate earns 94, but the em-
        ployer subtracts 5 points from the Black candidate’s score because
        she is Black, so her total becomes 89. Then the employer hires the
        non-Black candidate. In that scenario, race is the but-for cause of
        the employer’s failure to hire the Black candidate.
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        21-12332               Opinion of the Court                        17

               But suppose the non-Black candidate earns 90 points for her
        application and the Black candidate earns 85, and then the em-
        ployer subtracts 5 points because the Black candidate is Black, so
        her total becomes 80. In that scenario, the employer has still vio-
        lated § 2000e-16(a) because it allowed discrimination to factor into
        the decision-making process. But discrimination is not the but-for
        cause of the employer’s failure to hire the Black candidate. Rather,
        even without the discrimination, the employer would have hired
        the non-Black candidate because her score was higher.
                Yet even if a plaintiﬀ proves that race discrimination tainted
        the decision-making process, she is not necessarily entitled to all
        remedies under § 2000e-16(a). Relief must redress the injury the
        race discrimination inﬂicted. See Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1205 n.8. After
        all, the law seeks to make a plaintiﬀ whole. See id. So if an em-
        ployer discriminates in the decision-making process but that dis-
        crimination is not a but-for cause of the employer’s decision to, say,
        ﬁre a plaintiﬀ, that plaintiﬀ cannot obtain the same remedies as a
        plaintiﬀ whose employer wouldn’t have ﬁred her but for the em-
        ployer’s discrimination.
                To put this point into more detailed terms, we return to the
        example of ﬁring an employee. When discrimination is the but-for
        cause of an employee’s ﬁring, that employee may have a right to
        reinstatement, backpay, compensatory damages, and other forms
        of relief to address the wrongful ﬁring. Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406. But
        when the federal employer discriminates in the decision-making
        process but the employee would have been ﬁred, anyway, for a non-
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        18                         Opinion of the Court                 21-12332

        discriminatory reason, the employee is not entitled to remedies like
        reinstatement and backpay. See id. After all, the court cannot place
        the plaintiﬀ in a better position than she would have been in had
        the employer not discriminated against her. See id. Rather, the
        court must match any remedy to the speciﬁc injury. See id. So
        we’ve said that when discrimination is not the but-for cause of a
        personnel action, a court “should begin by considering ‘injunctive
        or other forward-looking relief.’” Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1205 n.8 (quot-
        ing Babb I, 589 U.S. at 406).
               Now that we’ve explored the standard for liability under Ti-
        tle VII’s federal-sector provision, we consider whether the McDon-
        nell Douglas8 framework, which we often use to assess private-sec-
        tor Title VII discrimination claims based on circumstantial evi-
        dence, continues to make sense in Babb I and Babb II’s wake. We
        conclude it does not.
               The McDonnell Douglas framework is a burden-shifting
        framework. Under it, the plaintiﬀ must carry the initial burden to
        establish a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that (1)
        she belonged to a protected class, (2) she experienced an adverse
        employment action, (3) she was qualiﬁed to perform her job, and
        (4) her employer treated similarly situated employees outside her
        class better. Phillips v. Legacy Cabinets, 87 F.4th 1313, 1321 (11th Cir.
        2023). Once the plaintiﬀ satisﬁes that burden, the burden shifts to
        the employer to give a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its

        8 McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).
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        21-12332               Opinion of the Court                         19

        actions. Id. If the employer does so, the employee must then show
        that the employer’s stated reason was merely a pretext for unlawful
        discrimination. Id. In other words, under the McDonnell Douglas
        framework, the plaintiﬀ bears the ultimate burden to show that
        discrimination was the but-for cause of her employer’s adverse per-
        sonnel action.
               But as we’ve explained, Title VII’s federal-sector provision
        does not require a showing of but-for causation to make out a vio-
        lation. Rather, a federal-sector employee must show only that a
        protected characteristic played any part in her employer’s process
        in reaching an adverse employment decision. So using the McDon-
        nell Douglas framework for § 2000e-16(a) claims is like requiring the
        plaintiﬀ to move a boulder when she need only push a pebble—in
        other words, the burden under McDonnell Douglas is heavier than
        Title VII imposes on a plaintiﬀ in a federal-sector case. Indeed, we
        stated as much in Babb II, when we found that the Supreme Court
        apparently “accepted Babb’s argument ‘that the District Court
        should not have used the McDonnell Douglas framework’” in as-
        sessing her claim. 992 F.3d at 1204.
                Instead, the framework is much simpler. In analyzing Buck-
        ley’s disparate-treatment claim, we return to Babb I’s directive and
        simply assess whether Buckley has proffered evidence that her race
        “play[ed] any part” in the Secretary’s decision-making process
        when he decided to remove her from federal service. Babb I, 140 S.
        Ct. at 1174 (emphasis added). We conclude that Buckley has iden-
        tified sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to find that race
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        played a role in the decision-making process. But she has not
        pointed to any evidence to establish that discrimination was the
        but-for cause behind the Secretary’s proposed termination of her
        employment.
               We begin with the evidence as it relates to the but-for cause
        behind Buckley’s proposed removal. The Secretary oﬀered a legit-
        imate, nondiscriminatory reason for ﬁring Buckley. Major Zhu and
        Major Miller said they proposed Buckley’s employment termina-
        tion because she had thrice disclosed private patient medical infor-
        mation in violation of HIPAA and Department regulations—in-
        cluding twice after being warned not to do so. And Buckley doesn’t
        dispute that she made any of the three disclosures for which Major
        Zhu and Major Miller cited her. Nor does she assert that any of the
        three disclosures did not violate HIPAA or Department regulations.
        Not only that, but Buckley concedes that during the relevant
        timeframe, the Department disciplined—including by ﬁring—
        other employees outside her protected group for the same infrac-
        tion.
                Buckley’s reliance on Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers’s conduct
        doesn’t help her establish but-for causation, either. Buckley doesn’t
        allege that either participated in the removal decision. And what-
        ever else we can say about Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers’s actions, we
        can’t say they bear any direct connection to Majors Zhu and Miller,
        the supervisors that decided to remove Buckley. So Buckley has
        failed to raise a material issue of fact about whether race was the
        but-for cause of her proposed removal.
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        21-12332              Opinion of the Court                       21

               On the other hand, Buckley does point to some behavior by
        Major Zhu that could allow a reasonable jury to infer that race fac-
        tored into the decision-making process along the way. In particular,
        during the investigation of Buckley’s First 2017 HIPAA Incident,
        Major Zhu asked Simmons if she could “get” Buckley on a HIPAA
        violation. And after Simmons concluded that no HIPAA violation
        had occurred, Major Zhu went over Simmons’s head to Simmons’s
        chief to pursue a “substantiated” ﬁnding. So while a reasonable
        jury could infer that Major Zhu took HIPAA violations especially
        seriously, it could alternatively draw the reasonable inference that
        Major Zhu did not like Buckley and was out to get her.
               That leaves the question as to why Major Zhu wanted Buck-
        ley dismissed. And that presents a jury question.
              To be sure, after trial, a jury might ﬁnd that Major Zhu
        wanted to get rid of Buckley because she had violated HIPAA or
        Major Zhu just found her hard to get along with or any number of
        other non-discriminatory reasons.
               But Buckley asserts that Major Zhu knew of the race-asso-
        ciated patient-diversion scheme and did little to stop it. Buckley
        acknowledges that Major Zhu investigated one of Buckley’s com-
        plaints that Chavers had put a false patient comment about Buckley
        into the patient’s ﬁle. But Buckley complains that all Major Zhu
        did about it was to arrange for Chavers to undergo remedial train-
        ing about writing notes in patients’ charts. Otherwise, Buckley
        complains, Major Zhu did nothing to stop the race-associated pa-
        tient-diversion scheme. And that’s so, Buckley complains, even
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        22                    Opinion of the Court                 21-12332

        though Major Zhu was a supervisor and could have put an end to
        the scheme.
               On top of that, Major Zhu asked Buckley an odd question
        that arguably invokes a racial trope—about whether her children
        had the same father. Buckley asserts that this question dredged up
        a racial stereotype that Black women have children with multiple
        partners. We think a reasonable jury could reach the same infer-
        ence. Indeed, a reasonable jury could infer that Major Zhu in-
        tended the reference to multiple fathers as a “racial insult” in the
        absence of any “benign explanation” for the question. See Jones, 683
        F.3d at 1297 (reasoning that “the use of monkey imagery [was] in-
        tended as a ‘racial insult’”). And that’s especially so when we con-
        sider that Major Zhu also allowed the race-based patient-diversion
        scheme to continue.
                Considering Major Zhu’s stated intent to “get” Buckley, her
        allegedly race-based remark, and her failure to take more action to
        end the allegedly race-based patient-diversion scheme, we con-
        clude that a reasonable jury could ﬁnd that Major Zhu pursued
        Buckley’s HIPAA violation so vigilantly at least in part because of
        Buckley’s race. If a jury so found, then race tainted the decision-
        making process (though it was not a but-for cause of Buckley’s pro-
        posed dismissal), and the Secretary violated § 2000e-16(a). We
        therefore vacate the district court’s entry of summary judgment on
        Buckley’s race-based disparate-treatment claim, but only as it re-
        lates to the Secretary’s actions in the decision-making process that
        led to Buckley’s dismissal.
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        21-12332                Opinion of the Court                          23

        B.     The Secretary was not entitled to summary judgment on
               Buckley’s race-based hostile-work-environment claim.
               To establish a hostile-work-environment claim based on
        race, a plaintiﬀ must show ﬁve things: (1) she is a member of a pro-
        tected class; (2) she experienced unwelcome harassment; (3) the
        harassment was race-based; (4) the harassment was “severe or per-
        vasive enough to alter the terms and conditions of [her] employ-
        ment and create a discriminatorily abusive working environment;”
        and (5) the employer is responsible for the environment under a
        theory of either vicarious or direct liability.” Adams v. Austal, U.S.A.,
        L.L.C., 754 F.3d 1240, 1248–49 (11th Cir. 2014) (citing Miller v. Ken-
        worth of Dothan, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1275 (11th Cir. 2002)). Buckley
        has satisﬁed each of these elements.
               First and second, Buckley is Black, and she did not welcome
        the harassment—including the patient-diversion scheme, the man-
        ufactured complaints about her, and the other harassment—she as-
        serts she received.
               Third, Buckley has submitted enough evidence to allow a
        reasonable jury to infer that the harassment she experienced was
        based on her race. For starters, Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers allegedly
        diverted only white patients, not Black patients, from Buckley’s
        care. And they diverted these white patients to a white provider,
        Cooper. Not only that, but Dr. Ribeiro’s comment during the al-
        leged patient-diversion scheme, that Buckley was an angry Black
        woman, was expressly race-based. See Banks v. Gen. Motors, LLC, 81
        F.4th 242, 272 (2d Cir. 2023) (ﬁnding that comments indicating
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        24                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        racial stereotypes, such as the “angry black woman,” “can create an
        inference of discriminatory motive”). Plus, a reasonable jury could
        also ﬁnd that Dr. Ribeiro’s remark that even a monkey could do
        Buckley’s job invoked a racial trope. See Jones, 683 F.3d at 1297
        (“The use of the term ‘monkey’ and other similar words have been
        part of actionable racial harassment claims across the country.”).
                Fourth, the harassment was severe and pervasive enough to
        alter the terms and conditions of Buckley’s employment and create
        a discriminatorily abusive working environment. The inquiry un-
        der this prong contains both an objective and subjective compo-
        nent. So Buckley must show both that a reasonable person would
        ﬁnd the harassment to be suﬃciently severe or pervasive, and that
        she subjectively found it to be so. Adams, 754 F.3d at 1249. We take
        each prong in turn.
                In evaluating the objective severity of the harassment, we
        consider, among other factors, (1) how often the conduct occurs;
        (2) how severe the conduct is; “(3) whether the conduct is physically
        threatening or humiliating, or a mere oﬀensive utterance; and (4)
        whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with the employee’s
        job performance.” Miller, 277 F.3d at 1276. Although we evaluate
        these considerations, a plaintiﬀ need not show any “single factor”
        to establish the objective component. Smelter v. S. Home Care Servs.
        Inc., 904 F.3d 1276, 1286–87 (11th Cir. 2018).
              When we apply these considerations here, we conclude that
        the patient-diversion scheme and associated solicited complaints
        were objectively severe and pervasive. Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers
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        21-12332              Opinion of the Court                       25

        disparaged Buckley to her patients and solicited complaints about
        her to systemically divert white patients from Buckley’s care to
        white providers. And they did so constantly. Both Buckley and Dr.
        Ortiz attested to Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers’s pattern and practice of
        bad-mouthing Buckley to her white patients. Dr. Ribeiro and
        Chavers’s scheme also drastically aﬀected Buckley’s job perfor-
        mance. Not only did it reduce her patient load, but it encouraged
        her patients to engage hostilely with her. Indeed, Dr. Ribeiro and
        Chavers sabotaged Buckley’s ability to succeed with her white pa-
        tients and undermined her entire position as a speech pathologist
        with the VA. A reasonable person would easily ﬁnd this scheme
        humiliating and frustrating.
               So it’s no surprise that Buckley found the behavior hostile.
        As Buckley explained, Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers’s conduct caused
        her to be “on pins and needles all the time” with her patients.
               As to the ﬁfth prong—liability—a reasonable jury could infer
        from the evidence that Buckley’s supervisors knew about the har-
        assment. See Miller, 277 F.3d at 1278 (“Actual notice is established
        by proof that management knew of the harassment.”); Smelter, 904
        F.3d at 1287 (imputing a supervisor’s notice of racist comments,
        because he overheard them, to the company itself ). Buckley pro-
        tested to Major Miller many times about patient complaints being
        put in her ﬁle. And Dr. Ortiz and Buckley testiﬁed that Buckley
        advised Major Zhu of her “ongoing . . . concern” with patient di-
        version. When we draw all reasonable inferences in Buckley’s fa-
        vor, we conclude that a jury could reasonably ﬁnd that Majors
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        26                     Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        Miller and Zhu knew of the race-based patient-diversion scheme
        and the drummed-up complaints.
               Because Buckley has shown enough to make out a race-
        based hostile-work-environment claim, we vacate the district
        court’s grant of summary judgment on that claim and remand for
        further proceedings on it.
        C.    The Secretary was entitled to summary judgment on
              Buckley’s traditional retaliation claim.
              Next, we address Buckley’s traditional retaliation claim.
        Buckley asserts that the Secretary retaliated against her by propos-
        ing her termination because Buckley complained about racial dis-
        crimination.
               We’ve held that § 2000e-16(a)’s prohibition of “any discrimi-
        nation” also “directly ‘bars reprisals against federal employees who
        ﬁle charges of discrimination.’” Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1203 (quoting
        Porter v. Adams, 639 F.2d 273, 277–78 (5th Cir. Unit A Mar. 1981)).
        That’s so because “retaliation for complaining about prohibited
        forms of discrimination is itself ‘discrimination’ within the mean-
        ing of § 2000e-16(a).” Id.
                As we’ve noted, § 2000e-16(a) generally requires federal-sec-
        tor employers to make “[a]ll personnel actions” “free from any dis-
        crimination . . . .” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a). Because we’ve said re-
        taliation falls within the category “discrimination” under § 2000e-
        16(a), that means that “[a]ll personnel actions” must be made “free
        from any” retaliation. So as with traditional race-based discrimina-
        tion, if retaliation for engaging in a protected activity under Title
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        21-12332                Opinion of the Court                          27

        VII taints the decision-making process for any personnel action,
        that violates the federal-sector provision—even if the employer
        would have made the same decision absent retaliation. Babb II, 992
        F.3d at 1202 (holding that Babb I displaced prior Eleventh Circuit
        precedent holding that the federal-sector retaliation claims require
        but-for causation). But as we’ve explained, remedies must match
        the injury. So remedies for a retaliation violation that tainted the
        decision-making process but were not a but-for cause of personnel
        action are limited just like they are for the analogous types of race-
        discrimination violations we’ve already discussed.
               With this understanding in mind, we turn to the framework
        we’ve used in the past to assess retaliation claims. Under that
        framework—a variation on the McDonnell Douglas framework—a
        plaintiﬀ may establish a prima facie case of retaliation by showing
        (1) she participated in an activity that Title VII protects; (2) she suf-
        fered an adverse personnel action; and (3) a causal relationship ex-
        ists between her protected activity and the adverse personnel ac-
        tion. Crawford v. Carroll, 529 F.3d 961, 970 (11th Cir. 2008). If the
        plaintiﬀ makes out a prima facie case, the burden falls on the em-
        ployer to state a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for the chal-
        lenged personnel action. Pennington v. City of Huntsville, 261 F.3d
        1262, 1266 (11th Cir. 2001). If the employer satisﬁes that burden,
        the plaintiﬀ must carry the ultimate burden of proving that the em-
        ployer’s stated reason is pretext for retaliation. Id.
               So just as with the traditional McDonnell Douglas framework
        for evaluating circumstantial race-discrimination claims, our prior
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        28                      Opinion of the Court                  21-12332

        framework for assessing retaliation claims requires a plaintiﬀ to
        prove that her employer wouldn’t have undertaken the challenged
        personnel action against her but for its retaliatory motive. But as
        we’ve explained, retaliation in the decision-making process—even
        if it didn’t aﬀect the ultimate decision—still violates § 2000e-16(a).
                So after Babb I and Babb II, in analyzing Buckley’s retaliation
        claim, we instead consider whether Buckley has submitted evi-
        dence that would allow a reasonable jury to ﬁnd that retaliation
        “play[ed] any part” in the Secretary’s decision-making process
        when he proposed to remove her from federal service. Babb I, 140
        S. Ct. at 1174 (emphasis added).
               We conclude that she has not. To prove retaliation tainted
        her proposed removal, on appeal, Buckley relies on only the tem-
        poral proximity between her EEO complaints and her proposed
        termination. But seven months passed between Buckley’s EEO
        complaint in November 2016 and her proposed removal in June
        2017. And eight months went by between her November 2016
        complaint and her proposed removal in July 2017. That is far too
        long to allow for the inference that retaliation infected the decision-
        making process that resulted in Buckley’s dismissal. See Thomas v.
        Cooper Lighting, Inc., 506 F.3d 1361, 1364 (11th Cir. 2007) (in the con-
        text of a but-for inquiry, holding that a period of three to four
        months, without more, is too long to establish an inference of
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        21-12332                  Opinion of the Court                              29

        causation). Without more, Buckley’s traditional retaliation claim
        fails. 9
        D.     The Secretary was entitled to summary judgment on
               Buckley’s retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claim.
               A retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claim complains
        that the employer created or tolerated a hostile work environment
        in retaliation for an employee’s participation in protected activity
        under Title VII. So a retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claim
        is somewhat of a hybrid of a traditional protected-characteristic-
        based hostile-work-environment claim and a traditional retaliation
        claim.
                But we have recognized that retaliatory-hostile-work-envi-
        ronment claims are “really . . . retaliation claims . . . rather
        than . . . ‘hostile[-work]-environment’ claims.” Babb II, 992 F.3d at
        1207. For that reason, we use the retaliation standard—“whether
        the employer’s complained-of action ‘well might have dissuaded a
        reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of

        9  In her reply brief, for the first time, Buckley argues that the three months
        between her last EEO complaint (filed in July 2017) and her eventual removal
        (in October 2017) creates an inference of causation. But that is too late. An
        appellant cannot raise a new argument in her reply brief, so that argument is
        forfeited. Sapuppo, 739 F.3d at 681, 683. And even if we were to consider the
        argument, three months between the two events is still not enough, standing
        alone, to establish that a retaliatory motive tainted the decision-making pro-
        cess to remove Buckley. See Thomas, 506 F.3d at 1364 (favorably citing Rich-
        mond v. ONEOK, Inc., 120 F.3d 205, 209 (10th Cir. 1997), for the proposition
        that a three-month period is “insufficient”).
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        30                    Opinion of the Court                21-12332

        discrimination’”—rather than the hostile-work-environment stand-
        ard—“severe or pervasive”—to assess a retaliatory-hostile-work-en-
        vironment claim. Id. at 1207 (citations omitted).
               One more note about the retaliatory-hostile-work-environ-
        ment claim standard: section 2000e-16(a) refers to only “personnel
        actions.” So to state a claim for retaliatory hostile work environ-
        ment, a federal-sector plaintiﬀ must establish that, to retaliate
        against her for engaging in protected Title VII activity, her em-
        ployer created or tolerated a work environment that “well might
        have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a
        charge of discrimination” and that environment rose to the level of
        a “personnel action[].” Babb II, 992 F.3d at 1207–09.
               Buckley has not done so. The district court granted sum-
        mary judgment against Buckley on her retaliatory-hostile-work-en-
        vironment claim for two independent reasons: it found that (1)
        Major Miller, Major Zhu, and Dr. Ribeiro did not “engage[] in har-
        assment that well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from
        making or supporting a charge of discrimination”, and (2) Buckley
        cited no evidence “establishing a causal connection between her
        protected activity and the harassment.” Buckley, 2021 WL 2403447,
        at *8.
               We’ve already explained that we think Buckley suﬃciently
        established that Dr. Ribeiro and Chavers created a hostile work en-
        vironment for Buckley that rose to the level of a “personnel ac-
        tion.” In fact, we concluded that Buckley satisﬁed the traditional-
        hostile-work-environment claim’s “severe or pervasive” standard.
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        21-12332               Opinion of the Court                       31

        And that standard is higher and more exacting than the “well might
        have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a
        charge of discrimination” standard we apply in a retaliatory-hostile-
        work-environment claim.
               But the evidence lends itself to only the inference that the
        hostile work environment was race-based, not retaliatory. So we
        agree with the district court that Buckley’s retaliatory-hostile-
        work-environment claim fails on the independent ground of cau-
        sation.
                Buckley does nothing on appeal to challenge the district
        court’s holding in this respect. So Buckley’s appeal on this claim
        also fails because when a district court bases its order on more than
        one independent ground, a party must convince us “that every
        stated ground for the judgment against [her] is incorrect.” Sapuppo,
        739 F.3d at 680. If she doesn’t challenge one or more bases for the
        district court’s ruling, we consider her appeal of that ruling aban-
        doned, and “judgment is due to be aﬃrmed.” Id. Just so here.
                              V.     CONCLUSION

               For these reasons, we aﬃrm the district court’s grant of
        summary judgment in the Secretary’s favor on Buckley’s tradi-
        tional-retaliation and retaliatory-hostile-work-environment claims.
        And we aﬃrm in part the district court’s grant of summary judg-
        ment for the Secretary on Buckley’s race-based disparate-treatment
        claim (namely, that race was not a but-for cause in Buckley’s termi-
        nation). But we vacate the district court’s summary-judgment or-
        der on Buckley’s hostile-work-environment claim, and we vacate
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        32                   Opinion of the Court               21-12332

        in part on her race-based disparate-treatment claim. Speciﬁcally,
        we vacate as to Buckley’s theory that race discrimination tainted
        the decision-making process though not her removal. Finally, we
        remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
                AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED AND REMANDED IN
        PART.