Background
The plaintiff, an African American woman, worked as a staff nurse and later a Nurse Manager at a Department of Veterans Affairs facility. She filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging race-based disparate treatment, a hostile work environment, retaliation, and constructive discharge following a meeting with a supervisor. The district court dismissed some claims and granted summary judgment on the remaining claims, finding the plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts to support an inference of racial animus or prove the decisionmaker knew of her protected activity.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo. It held that the plaintiff waived appellate review of her retaliatory harassment claim by failing to object to the magistrate judge’s findings. Regarding the exhausted claims, the court found the record devoid of objective evidence that the plaintiff was subject to disparate treatment due to her race. The court noted that subjective belief of discrimination is insufficient to preclude summary judgment. On the retaliation claim, the court determined the plaintiff failed to present evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the person who took adverse employment actions knew of her protected activity. The court rejected arguments based on temporal proximity or the decisionmaker’s use of a specific phrase as insufficient to prove knowledge of protected activity.
The record is devoid of objective evidence McCray was subject to disparate treatment due to her race.
McCray v. Collins, 24-3159 (10th Cir. 2026)
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces the requirement in the Tenth Circuit that plaintiffs alleging employment discrimination must provide specific, objective evidence of disparate treatment rather than subjective beliefs. It also clarifies that administrative exhaustion limits the scope of Title VII claims to discrete incidents occurring within the statutory timeframe and that proving a decisionmaker’s knowledge of protected activity is a distinct and necessary element for retaliation claims.