Mary Chambers v. DC

── Mary Chambers v. DC ── Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Date: May 01, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 24-7132 September Term, 2025 FILED ON: MAY 1, 2026 MARY E. CHAMBERS, APPELLANT v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, APPELLEE Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:14-cv-02032) Before: SRINIVASAN, Chief Judge, and WILKINS and RAO, Circuit Judges. JUDGMENT This appeal was considered on the record from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and on the briefs and oral argument of the parties. The panel has accorded the issues full consideration and has determined that they do not warrant a published opinion. See D.C. Cir. R. 36(d). It is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the District of Columbia be AFFIRMED. * * * Mary Chambers was a Support Enforcement Specialist in the Child Support Service Division of the District of Columbia’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG). During her time at OAG, Chambers made more than 20 requests to transfer to a different unit, all of which were denied. This appeal presents the latest installment in long-running litigation over one such transfer denial.  2 In September 2010, Chambers emailed her supervisors seeking a transfer to a different unit within the Division. Chambers’s supervisors denied the transfer request, offering a facially nondiscriminatory reason: that it was “imperative that [Chambers’s] Unit maintain, at a minimum, its current staffing level.” Chambers later brought this Title VII action, alleging that OAG’s transfer denial was motivated by sex discrimination. After the case came to our court, see Chambers v. District of Columbia, 35 F.4th 870 (D.C. Cir. 2022) (en banc), and then went back to the district court, the district court granted summary judgment to the District. Chambers now appeals. We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo. Ali v. Regan, 111 F.4th 1264, 1273 (D.C. Cir. 2024). We ordinarily evaluate discrimination claims supported solely by circumstantial evidence—as is true of Chambers’s claim here—under the three-part burden- shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). But to survive summary judgment when, as here, an employer has offered a facially legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for a challenged employment action, “the plaintiff must prove that a reasonable jury could infer that the employer’s given explanation was pretextual and that this pretext shielded discriminatory motives.” Jackson v. Gonzalez, 496 F.3d 703, 707 (D.C. Cir. 2007); see also Allen v. Johnson, 795 F.3d 34, 39 (D.C. Cir. 2015). The plaintiff can do so, for example, “by citing the employer’s better treatment of similarly situated employees outside the plaintiff’s protected group, its inconsistent or dishonest explanations, its deviation from established procedures or criteria, or the employer’s pattern of poor treatment of other employees in the same protected group as the plaintiff, or other relevant evidence that a jury could reasonably conclude evinces an illicit motive.” Walker v. Johnson, 798 F.3d 1085, 1092 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (citing Brady v. Off. of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 495 & n.3 (D.C. Cir. 2008)). Conclusory statements along these lines are insufficient: the plaintiff must produce some evidence to defeat the motion for summary judgment. Greene v. Dalton, 164 F.3d 671, 675 (D.C. Cir. 1999). On appeal, Chambers raises three challenges to the district court’s grant