Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—RACE—D.D.C.: State department employee advances claim based on forced resignation from affinity group leadership role, (Oct 30, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

Absent any contrary directive from the D.C. Circuit, the court applied Muldrow and Chambers to the employee’s discrimination claims.

After rejecting the Secretary of State’s attempt to cabin Muldrow and Chambers to private-sector Title VII suits, a federal court in the District of Columbia, declining in part to dismiss the race discrimination claims of a Black state department employee who alleged, among other things, that she was forced to resign from the Blacks in Government (BIG) affinity group, found it premature to conclude, as a matter of law, that being forced to resign from a leadership position of an employee affinity group was not an adverse employment action for Title VII purposes. While the employee sufficiently alleged that some of the other actions, such as an increased workload, constituted an adverse employment action, she failed to establish that they were connected to her race, said the court, dismissing the bulk of her discrimination claims. Her retaliation and hostile work environment claims were also dismissed (Rhone v. Rubio, No. 24-3389 (RC) (D.D.C. Oct. 28, 2025)).

BIG resignation. The employee began working as an EEO specialist with the Department of State’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in 2016. In February 2017, she alleged that two supervisors told her she had to resign as VP of BIG because of a policy decision made by OCR leadership, which, she claimed, negatively impacted her career and advancement opportunities. Five years later, she learned that a white OCR employee was listed as a board member of another affinity group, Executive Women at State.

Non-selection. She also alleged that in May 2023, she applied for and was interviewed for one of five open EEO lead specialist positions. But not only was she not selected, one of the positions allegedly went to a “less qualified Caucasian/White woman.”

According to the employee, beginning in 2020, her supervisors subjected her to “unreasonable workloads of over 50 active cases” and denied her requests for assistance while providing assistance to white colleagues. In addition, before the employee went on medical leave in 2023, a department official demanded that she provide status reports for over 100 cases in 24 hours, and while she was on leave, assigned her 17 new cases. She also claimed that starting in 2021, she was chastised and berated by a supervisor on multiple occasions.

She ultimately sued the secretary of state, alleging race discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment in violation of Title VII.

Muldrow and Chambers. In its partial motion to dismiss—it did not move to dismiss her non-selection claim—the employer first argued that the employee’s race discrimination claims failed because the alleged workplace grievances did not amount to adverse employment actions. While the court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Missouri, decision aligned with the D.C Circuit’s decision in Chambers v. District of Columbia, which held that an employee alleging an “adverse employment action” no longer needed to “make a separate showing of ‘objectively tangible harm,’” the employer argued that Muldrow’s and Chambers’s holdings are limited to suits against private-sector and state and local government employers.

In support, the employer pointed out that Title VII’s provision applicable to private and non-federal government employers outlaws discrimination with respect to an individual’s “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment,” while its federal employer provision requires that “[a]ll personnel actions affecting employees... be made free from any discrimination” based on a protected characteristic. Although Title VII does not define “protected characteristic,” the Civil Service Reform Act defines it to include certain enumerated employment-related actions, such as appointments, promotions, and disciplinary actions, as well as other enumerated “change[s] in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions,” but only if these are “significant.”

Rejecting the employer’s argument, the court noted that the D.C. Circuit has “long and repeatedly held that the federal-sector provisions [of Title VII] are coterminous with their private-sector counterparts as far as the standard for an adverse action goes.” Further, said the court, “when the D.C. Circuit modified that standard in Chambers, ‘it did not so much as hint’ that the two provisions ‘should no longer be construed alike.’” Accordingly, the court applied Muldrow and Chambers to the employee’s claims.

Forced resignation. Turning to whether the employee sufficiently alleged her forced resignation from BIG was an adverse action, the court noted that since Chambers, courts in this district have interpreted the phrase “terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” to embrace actions unrelated to an employee’s formal job-related duties and responsibilities when the “actions nevertheless impacted discernable aspects of an employee’s working conditions, professional opportunities, or potential for career advancement.”

Here, the employee alleged that because she was forced to retire as the VP of BIG, she suffered a loss of career and advancement opportunities. Although lacking in specifics, it was sufficient to put her employer on notice of her claim that its demand she resign from BIG affected a term or condition of her employment. She also plausibly alleged a causal connection between her forced resignation and her race as she claimed that a white employee was listed as a board member at Executive Women at State, which was just enough to infer that the colleague was conceivably subject to the same OCR “policy decision” pursuant to which the employee was forced to resign. Accordingly, this claim survived the employer’s motion to dismiss.

Other adverse actions. As to the employee’s claim she was subjected to an unreasonable workload that forced her to work weekends without pay, and that she was required to produce status reports within 24 hours before going on leave, the court found these allegations sufficient to suggest the assignments negatively impacted her work environment, thus making them adverse employment actions. Because she failed, however, to allege facts raising an inference of discrimination with respect to her increased workload, the court dismissed her workload-related discrimination claims.

Her allegations she was denied requests for workload assistance that were approved for her white colleagues were deficient for lack of factual support, said the court, and her allegations of unpleasant workplace interactions, including being chastised and berated, amounted to the sort of “rude and disrespectful” behavior that was insufficient to support her claim. Accordingly, the court also dismissed these claims.

Retaliation. Nor could the employee advance her retaliation claims. While she argued that she engaged in protected activity in May 2020 when she opposed discriminatory practices against Black women in her office and when she filed an EEO complaint in May 2023, her forced resignation from BIG preceded these events. As for her EEO complaint, she alleged she filed it “on or about” the same day she was informed of her non-selection for the lead specialist position. Given that the complaint named the supervisors who interviewed her and informed her she was not selected for the position, the court found the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from this set of facts was that she filed her EEO complaint because of her non-selection, not that she was passed over for the position as retaliation for filing the complaint.

As to her claim based on an increased workload, the court found that her allegations she was assigned “over 50 active cases” since 2020, that she had to work weekends without pay, and that her supervisors emailed her with work assignments while she was on medical leave failed for lack of factual context. She did not explain how much work those assignments entailed, how it might have been disproportionate, or even how often she had to work weekends, said the court, finding it could not conclude that these were materially adverse actions as required for retaliation claims.

And, while her allegations that her supervisor gave her 24 hours to research 100 cases before she went on leave in September 2023 despite the employee’s prior “understanding” that she would have more time to complete the task and that she was assigned 17 new cases to work on while on leave were sufficient to support her claim, she failed to plausibly allege a causal connection between the increases in workload and her engagement in protected activity. While she filed her EEO compliant four months before the increased workload, she did not allege that the supervisors responsible for the increased workload even knew that she had filed the complaint or specify which supervisors assigned her the 17 new cases while on leave. Thus, the court dismissed this claim as well.

Hostile work environment. Her hostile work environment claim likewise failed as her allegations regarding her increased workload, denials of requests for assistance, and unpleasant interactions with her supervisors did not rise to the requisite level of severity or pervasiveness to constitute a hostile work environment.

The case is No. 24-3389 (RC).

Judge: Contreras, R.

Attorneys: Donna Williams Rucker (Tully Rinckey) for Claudette Rhone. Kartik Narayan Venguswamy, U.S. Department of Justice, for Marco A. Rubio.

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