Marcus L. McDaniel v. Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture

Petitioner McDaniel, an African-American male, was working as a new GS-13 employee for Respondent USDA when his newly-arrived secondlevel supervisor chided him for “acting white,” told him to “stop acting white,” and warned that she could fire him at any time. In a short span of months, the supervisor caused Mr. McDaniel to be discharged on alleged grounds of conduct and performance. In the ensuing EEO action, the supervisor denied making the racist comments and lied in denying that she made the termination decision. The district court granted USDA summary judgment, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed per curiam but did so using an incorrect statement of D.C. Circuit law and by ignoring the Supreme Court’s landmark Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products

1. precedent that directs courts to deny summary adjudication when the nonmoving discrimination plaintiff shows evidence calling the moving party employer’s “legitimate nondiscriminatory explanation” into question as unworthy of credence and pretextual. The questions presented are:

2. Whether, in this employment discrimination lawsuit, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals erred by affirming summary judgment for the employer when the plaintiff proffered evidence showing the