Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE—D.C. Cir.: Liberal pro se pleading standard saves religious discrimination claim, (Jun 10, 2026)

By Steven D. Cole, J.D.

In vacating the district court’s dismissal, the appellate court cited a factual allegation indicating a supervisor’s religious discrimination that was absent from the complaint but was raised in the pro se litigant’s opposition memorandum.

A former federal employee may proceed with her Title VII discrimination action after the D.C. Circuit vacated the district court’s dismissal. The pro se litigant’s complaint contained no factual allegations indicating a discriminatory motive on the part of the decisionmakers responsible for her termination. Her opposition memorandum to the government’s motion to dismiss, however, alleged that when her supervisor denied her request to accommodate her observance of Ramadan, he said that he did not believe in “Islamic religious extremism.” The Court, citing the liberal pleading standard afforded to plaintiffs proceeding pro se, remanded the case for the district court to either consider that allegation or explain why it could be disregarded (Naz v. Wright, No. 23-5237 (D.C. Cir. June 9, 2026)).

The plaintiff in this Title VII suit is a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who worked in the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Consumption and Efficiency Analysis from 2017 until her termination in 2021.

Relationship changed. Although the employee enjoyed a cordial and productive relationship with her supervisor during the first nine months of her tenure, this changed after she testified on behalf of a coworker in support of his EEOC complaint, in which he had accused the supervisor of race discrimination. Thereafter, the supervisor became hostile and antagonistic toward the employee.

On one occasion, the supervisor remarked that “non-native people” like her often “have difficulty writing” and inquired whether she had “attended school in the United States.” Among other perceived slights, the supervisor criticized the employee’s writing, gave her negative performance reviews, and placed her on a 90-day performance plan. This prompted the employee to file a complaint with the EEOC accusing the supervisor of discrimination and retaliation.

Discrimination continued. The discriminatory work environment continued when the supervisor was replaced by a new supervisor in March 2019. This second supervisor, who was aware of the filing of the EEOC charge, micromanaged the employee, bullied her, excluded her from meetings, reinstated the performance plan, and denied her a grade increase to which she claimed entitlement. The employee filed an EEOC complaint against this supervisor as well, accusing him of discrimination and retaliation. The Department of Energy fired the employee in January 2021, attributing the termination to her writing deficiencies.

Pro se filing. In June 2022, proceeding pro se, the employee filed a complaint alleging Title VII violations for discrimination based on her race, gender, sex, religion, and national origin, arguing that the Department failed to promote her, and fired her, because of these protected characteristics. She also asserted claims for retaliation, citing her testimony in support of the coworker and the EEOC complaints that she had filed on her own behalf. The government moved to dismiss the complaint, and the employee responded by filing a 148-page opposition memorandum, along with 1,063 pages of attached exhibits.

Complaint dismissed. The district court granted the motion to dismiss, finding that the complaint did not establish a causal link necessary to support the retaliation claims. It explained that the employee’s testimony against her first supervisor occurred six months before she began to experience any difficulties, and that she had filed her own EEOC complaints well after her supervisors had documented substantial concerns with her written work. As for discrimination, the district court noted that the complaint contained only one allegation touching on a protected characteristic—the first supervisor’s disparaging comment about the writing skills of “non-native people” in April 2018. According to the district court, that comment did not support a plausible inference that different decisionmakers fired her because of her national origin or race more than two years later.

Following the employee’s appeal, the court appointed an amicus curiae counsel to present her arguments. The employee consented.

Evidence of discrimination. The court generally lauded the district court’s handling of the case below, taking issue with just one detail—its failure to consider a single factual allegation that was present only in the employee’s opposition memorandum. In that 148-page document, the employee referenced a request she had made to her second supervisor in May or June 2019 to adjust the start time of their weekly meetings by 30 minutes for the duration of one month in order to accommodate her religious observance of Ramadan. In response, the supervisor retorted that the workplace was “not a religious institution,” and that he did not believe in “Islamic religious extremism.” Because this allegation supported the employee’s claim of discrimination based on religion, the appellate court directed the district court, on remand, to “take that allegation into account or … explain why it may be disregarded.”

Issue preservation. Although factual allegations supporting a plaintiff’s claims must ordinarily be identified in the complaint, the court noted that its precedents have permitted courts to consider a pro se plaintiff’s allegations in an opposition to a dismissal motion. See Spence v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 109 F.4th 531, 537-38 (D.C. Cir. 2024); Brown v. Whole Food Mkt. Grp., Inc., 789 F.3d 146, 152 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

The court also recognized that the court-appointed amicus did not, in his briefing, specifically point to this allegation. This was not necessary, it found, as the government’s own pleadings acknowledged that the employee’s opposition was part of the record before the court, and it was “unaware of any precedent suggesting that a party who argues that allegations suffice to survive a motion to dismiss must reference every single allegation supporting that showing or else risk forfeiture of an unmentioned allegation.”

Dissent. Judge Katsas would have affirmed the district court’s judgment in full, opining that “where a pro se appellant is supported by a court-appointed amicus, we have never relaxed the basic rule that the appellant or the amicus must distinctly identify each ground on which reversal is sought.”

The case is No. 23-5237.

Attorneys: Farah Naz, pro se. Johnny Hillary Walker, III, U.S. Attorney's Office, for Chris Wright.

Cases: Procedure Discrimination NationalOrigin RaceDiscrimination ReligiousDiscrimination SexDiscrimination PublicEmployees Retaliation DistrictofColumbiaNews