Ajayi V. Aramark Business Services

Lola Ajayi, an African-American woman born January 12, 1956, brought this race-discrimination, age-discrimination, and retaliatory-discharge suit against her former employer, Aramark Business Services, Inc., under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2 et seq. (2003), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (2003), and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Ajayi identified as discriminatory thirteen adverse employment actions, including her eventual termination, which she also alleged was in retaliation for her having filed an EEOC charge. Aramark moved for summary judgment. In granting Aramark's motion, the district court (1) dismissed Ajayi's ADEA claim because she did not properly raise her age claims in her EEOC charge; (2) found that most of the thirteen complained-of actions taken by Aramark did not result in a "materially adverse change" in Ajayi's employment as required to be actionable under the antidiscrimination statutes; (3) found that Ajayi could not establish that similarly situated individuals outside of the protected class were treated more favorably with respect to her remaining failure-topromote and discriminatory-discharge claims; and (4) found that Ajayi had no direct evidence of retaliatory discharge nor evidence to suggest that Aramark's stated legitimate reasons for terminating Ajayi were pretextual. Ajayi appeals. We affirm with respect to the age- and racediscrimination claims, and reverse and remand on the retaliation claims.