In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 24-1297
KARL RABENHORST,
                                                 Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                v.

KRISTI L. NOEM, Secretary,
United States Department of
Homeland Security,
                                                Defendant-Appellee.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
          Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:21-cv-03620 — Manish S. Shah, Judge.
                    ____________________

  ARGUED JANUARY 22, 2025 — DECIDED DECEMBER 22, 2025
                ____________________

   Before BRENNAN, Chief Judge, and ROVNER, and ST. EVE,
Circuit Judges.
    ROVNER, Circuit Judge. In this employment discrimination
action, Karl Rabenhorst, who worked for the Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency (“FEMA”), an agency within the
domain of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), al-
leges that he was improperly removed from a relief operation
2                                                  No. 24-1297

and suspended without pay because of his sex and age, sub-
jected to a hostile work environment, and retaliated against
based on his pursuit of an internal complaint of sex discrimi-
nation, all in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1968, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) & e-3(a), and the Age Discrim-
ination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 

(a). The
district court granted summary judgment to the DHS Secre-
tary, and Rabenhorst appeals. Rabenhorst v. Mayorkas, No.
21 CV 3620, 

 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 22, 2024). We affirm
the district court’s judgment.
                                 I.
   Following a 28-year career in the Navy and Naval Reserve,
Rabenhorst was hired by FEMA in 2009 as a technical hazards
specialist focusing on radiological emergency preparedness.
He was originally assigned to work with state officials in Wis-
consin, Michigan, and Ohio to develop and review emer-
gency-preparedness plans. In 2017, he was reassigned to a
post that did not involve work with state officials, and Sean
O’Leary, who served as the chief of FEMA’s Technological
Hazards branch, became Rabenhorst’s supervisor.
   In the years preceding the events at issue in this case,
Rabenhorst was twice reprimanded for what were deemed to
be inappropriate interactions with state officials. In April
2016, without his supervisor’s knowledge or consent, he
emailed a Michigan assistant attorney general challenging
him on the interplay between federal and state law. When his
supervisor learned of the email from a Michigan official,
Rabenhorst was reprimanded for failing to follow the super-
visory chain of command. The written reprimand noted that
he had been counseled on two prior occasions about sending
aggressive or argumentative emails. In June 2017, during a
No. 24-1297                                                  3

testy interchange with Ohio state officials, Rabenhorst asked,
rhetorically, whether any of them spoke English. When his
question was met with silence, Rabenhorst remarked, “This is
[b]ullshit.” Ohio officials subsequently asked that Rabenhorst
not be assigned to work on future Ohio events, and he was
reprimanded for engaging in inappropriate behavior. In both
instances, Rabenhorst was warned that engaging in further
behavior of this sort could result in additional discipline, up
to and including discharge.
    During an August 2017 disaster preparedness exercise,
Rabenhorst was overheard speaking with a contractor and re-
marking that “O’Leary [his supervisor] had his head up his
ass.” On being told of this incident, O’Leary warned
Rabenhorst not to speak with contractors and to direct any
complaints about the exercise through the FEMA chain of
command. Yet the following day, Rabenhorst spoke at length
with another contractor about the exercise.
   After the August 2017 incidents, O’Leary was preparing to
discipline Rabenhorst for insubordination and interfering
with contractors. Before he followed through on that intent,
Rabenhorst was deployed to Puerto Rico in October 2017 in
the wake of Hurricane Maria.
    Based on his military aviation and air operations experi-
ence, Rabenhorst was assigned to help oversee Puerto Rico air
operations related to the disaster relief effort, including the
airlifting of emergency aid to the island and medical evacua-
tions from the island. In that capacity, Rabenhorst was work-
ing with female FEMA employees in their twenties who, ac-
cording to him, knew nothing about air operations and man-
agement. Tensions arose between Rabenhorst and his female
coworkers, and a number of the women became
4                                                  No. 24-1297

uncomfortable working with him. During staff meetings,
Rabenhorst reportedly used profanity, treated his female
coworkers and supervisors with disrespect, and on one occa-
sion referred to one or more of female colleagues as “sorority
girls” and remarked as to one of them that he had “paddled
the butts of daughters who were older than her.” Ultimately,
approximately one month after Rabenhorst arrived in Puerto
Rico, Josie Arcurio, the FEMA official serving as chief of staff
for the relief effort, decided to remove him from the operation
for cause, in view of his treatment of co-workers, and had him
escorted out of the air operations branch in the view of other
employees.
    Between October and December 2017, Rabenhorst con-
tacted the DHS Office of Equal Rights, engaged in the equal
employment opportunity counseling process, and ultimately,
on December 6, filed an internal complaint asserting employ-
ment discrimination based on his age and sex, focused on his
removal from the Puerto Rico relief effort (we shall refer to
this as his “EEO complaint”). O’Leary avers that he was not
aware of the filed EEO complaint, but Rabenhorst testified
that he had previously told O’Leary, upon his return from
Puerto Rico, that he intended to file such a complaint.
Rabenhorst avers that FEMA never responded to this com-
plaint, and the Secretary does not dispute that averment.
    Meanwhile, O’Leary, on receiving the details from Arcu-
rio regarding Rabenhorst’s misconduct during his Puerto
Rico deployment, decided in November 2017 to discipline
Rabenhorst based on his conduct both prior to and during
that deployment. In June 2018, O’Leary sent Rabenhorst no-
tice of a proposed suspension for 14 days based on charges
that Rabenhorst had exhibited conduct unbecoming a federal
No. 24-1297                                                           5

employee, failed to follow instructions during the August
2017 exercise, and engaged in disruptive conduct during the
Puerto Rico deployment. The notice invited Rabenhorst to re-
spond orally or in writing; he submitted a 200-page written
response. Multiple follow-up meetings between O’Leary and
Rabenhorst to discuss the proposed discipline were sched-
uled and then rescheduled by O’Leary, and ultimately, due to
O’Leary taking medical leave, the two never met in person to
discuss the proposed discipline. Eventually, on October 1,
2018, after considering the record (including Rabenhorst’s re-
sponse), O’Leary decided to suspend Rabenhorst without pay
for 13 days for the reasons set forth in the notice of proposed
discipline.
    In August 2018, O’Leary cancelled Rabenhorst’s participa-
tion in two FEMA exercises. That same month, Rabenhorst
filed a second internal complaint, alleging, among other
things, that the then-pending notice of proposed suspension
and the exclusion of Rabenhorst from the two exercises were
the result of sex and age discrimination and also constituted
retaliation for his prior EEO complaint. A report of the inves-
tigation was filed on November 5, 2019, and FEMA issued its
final agency decision on Rabenhorst’s August 2018 complaint
in April 2021, denying him relief. Rabenhorst then filed this
suit alleging age and sex discrimination, a hostile work envi-
ronment, and retaliation, all in violation of Title VII and the
ADEA. 1
  As noted, Judge Shah ultimately granted summary judg-
ment to Rabenhorst. With respect to the claims of age and sex


    1 Rabenhorst was later removed from federal service in May 2023. His

termination is not at issue in this suit.
6                                                   No. 24-1297

discrimination, the parties analyzed the case under the
McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, see McDonnell
Douglas Corp. v. Green, 

 (1973), and the court did
the same. That framework required Rabenhorst in the first in-
stance to make out a prima facie case of discrimination by es-
tablishing four elements: (1) that he is a member of a protected
class; (2) that he was meeting his employer’s expectations;
(3) that he suffered an adverse employment action; and
(4) that similarly situated employees who were not members
of his protected class were treated more favorably than he
was. E.g., Gaines v. Dart, 

, 837–38 (7th Cir. 2025).
If a plaintiff succeeds in making out a prima facie case of dis-
crimination, then the defendant must identify a legitimate,
non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment ac-
tion. E.g., Cunningham v. Austin, 

, 788 (7th Cir.
2025) (quoting Lewis v. Ind. Wesleyan Univ., 

(7th Cir. 2022)). Once that reason is articulated, the burden re-
turns to the plaintiff to present evidence that this rationale
was pretextual. 

   The first element of the prima facie case was undisputed:
Rabenhorst was in a protected class based on his age (over 40)
and sex (male). 

, at *4.
    But Rabenhorst failed to establish the second element of
the prima facie case, in that he did not show he was meeting
his employer’s legitimate work expectations: “he was repeat-
edly insubordinate and abusive to his superiors and cowork-
ers.” 

.
   As for the third element, the court agreed that Rabenhorst
had suffered two adverse employment actions: he was sus-
pended without pay for 13 days, and he was also removed
from the Puerto Rico relief effort, which had adverse effects
No. 24-1297                                                               7

on his work hours, compensation, and career prospects. 

.
    But as to the fourth and final element of the prima facie
case, the court found that Rabenhorst had not shown that sim-
ilarly-situated employees who were women and/or signifi-
cantly younger than he 2 were treated more favorably than he
was. Rabenhorst argued, for example, that his younger female
coworkers in Puerto Rico were not disciplined for their failure
to understand FEMA rules and procedures, whereas he was
treated unfairly for his efforts to help them. Yet, as the district
court pointed out, Rabenhorst was not disciplined for failing
to understand FEMA rules and procedures; rather, he was
disciplined for failing to follow instructions, engaging in dis-
ruptive and otherwise inappropriate behavior, and conduct-
ing himself in a manner unbecoming of a federal employee.
The record did not suggest that the younger female cowork-
ers he cited as comparators had engaged in comparable mis-
conduct. 

.
   The court added that even if Rabenhorst had established a
prima facie case of discrimination, he had presented no evi-
dence suggesting that the stated reasons for O’Leary’s deci-
sion to suspend him were pretextual or that O’Leary was oth-
erwise motivated by discriminatory animus. 

    2 As we noted in Gaines, a plaintiff alleging age discrimination in vio-

lation of the ADEA need not identify comparators who were outside of
the protected class—i.e., who were younger than 40 years old—in order to
meet this element of the prima facie case; he need only identify compara-
tors who were not “insignificantly younger” than he was. 158 F.4th at 838
(quoting O’Connor v. Consol. Coin Caterers Corp., 

 (1996)).
8                                                            No. 24-1297

    As for the hostile environment claim, the court found that
Rabenhorst had presented no evidence that he was subject to
an objectively offensive work environment or that any objec-
tionable behavior was severe or pervasive. Additionally,
Rabenhorst made no showing that any objectionable conduct
was based on his age or sex. Id. at *6.
    Finally, the court found the evidence insufficient to sup-
port Rabenhorst’s retaliation claim, which was limited to con-
duct protected by Title VII. 3 The court noted that for purposes
of this claim, the only protected conduct was the EEO claim
he pursued between October and December 2017. Rabenhorst
had previously filed whistleblower complaints and griev-
ances in 2016, but those related to regulatory violations and
his reprimands for inappropriate communications with state
officials rather than to alleged Title VII violations. As for the
2017 EEO claim challenging his removal from the Puerto Rico
deployment, the evidence did not suggest a causal link be-
tween that statutorily-protected activity and O’Leary’s deci-
sion to suspend him without pay: There was evidence of sus-
picious timing, in that O’Leary had decided to move ahead
with the disciplinary process in November 2017, around the
same time that Rabenhorst submitted his EEO complaint (alt-
hough the suspension was not formally ordered until June
2018); but there was nothing more than that. The record also
showed that O’Leary had already formed the intent to disci-
pline Rabenhorst before Rabenhorst deployed to Puerto Rico
in October 2017. And it was after Arcurio advised O’Leary of
Rabenhorst’s conduct in Puerto Rico that O’Leary initiated
the disciplinary process, thus supplying an innocent

    3 Rabenhorst did not contend that he was subject to retaliation for pur-

suing his rights under the ADEA. 

, at *6 n.6.
No. 24-1297                                                     9

explanation for the timing. Although Rabenhorst argued that
Arcurio herself was aware of his protected activity and was
the true decisionmaker regarding the suspension, the court
found no evidence that she was aware of his protected activ-
ity, nor was there evidence that Arcurio was involved in the
decision to suspend Rabenhorst—rather, O’Leary was the one
and only person who made that decision. There was nothing
suggesting that O’Leary may have harbored a retaliatory ani-
mus; nothing indicating that similarly-situated employees
were treated more leniently than Rabenhorst; and nothing
suggesting that O’Leary’s stated reasons for disciplining
Rabenhorst were pretextual. “There is no evidence that would
allow a jury to find that O’Leary’s decision to suspend
Rabenhorst without pay for 13 days was motivated by any-
thing but Rabenhorst’s misconduct.” 

.
                                 II.
    For the reasons set forth below, the district court did not
err in entering summary judgment in the Secretary’s favor.
We review that decision de novo, construing the facts in
Rabenhorst’s favor and granting him the benefit of all reason-
able inferences that may be drawn from the record evidence.
Culp v. Caudill, 

, 942 (7th Cir. 2025), cert. denied,
No. 25-314, 

 (U.S. Dec. 8, 2025).
    We note at the outset that the district court disregarded
certain additional proposed facts that Rabenhorst asserted in
his response to the Secretary’s Local Rule 56.1 statement of
undisputed facts. See N.D. Ill. Local Rule 56.1(e). Generally
speaking, those factual assertions were aimed at placing
Rabenhorst’s overall conduct as an employee in a more favor-
able light. For example, regarding the April 2016 incident in
which Rabenhorst had emailed a Michigan assistant attorney
10                                                   No. 24-1297

general on a legal point, Rabenhorst purported to dispute “as
misleading” the Secretary’s account of the incident and pro-
posed additional facts to explain why the issue was im-
portant, to note that Michigan officials were taking the posi-
tion that state law superseded federal law, and to suggest that
he had framed his email inquiry in a civil manner. Similarly,
regarding the June 2017 reprimand for his inappropriate in-
teractions with Ohio state officials, Rabenhorst again re-
sponded that the Secretary’s account was misleading and pro-
posed additional facts suggesting that an Ohio official was re-
ally upset because a report authored by Rabenhorst was in-
sufficiently complementary to the state. The court disre-
garded many of Rabenhorst’s factual assertions along these
lines on the ground that Rabenhorst had either failed to
properly admit or deny the Secretary’s posited facts as re-
quired by the local rule, see Local Rule 56.1(e)(2) (“Each re-
sponse must admit the asserted fact, dispute the asserted fact,
or admit in part and dispute in part the asserted fact.”), or be-
cause the facts that Rabenhorst asserted in response were not
supported by the record materials he cited, see Local Rule
56.1(d)(2) (“Each asserted fact must be supported by citation
to the specific evidentiary material, including the specific
page number, that supports it.”). 

, at *2 n.2.
   A district court’s application and enforcement of local
summary judgment rules is a discretionary matter, and we
have routinely upheld strict enforcement of such rules. E.g.,
Upchurch v. Indiana, 

, 586 (7th Cir. 2025); Taylor v.
Schwarzhuber, 

, 491–92 (7th Cir. 2025). We see no
abuse of discretion in the court’s decision in this regard. See
Patterson v. Ind. Newspapers, Inc., 

 (7th Cir.
2009); Bordelon v. Chicago Sch. Reform Bd. of Trs., 

,
527–28 (7th Cir. 2000); Brasic v. Heinemann’s Inc. Bakeries, 121
No. 24-1297                                                      

, 283–84 (7th Cir. 1997); Midwest Imports, Ltd. v. Coval,

 (7th Cir. 1995).
    The court also struck certain portions of Rabenhorst’s dec-
laration (cited in support of his own statement of additional
facts, see Local Rule 56.1(b)(3)) where the declaration supplied
no foundation establishing his personal knowledge of the
facts asserted. 

, at *1. The court committed no
error in that ruling either. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(4); Packer v.
Trs. of Ind. Univ. Sch. of Med., 

 (7th Cir. 2015).
   In sum, we shall review the district court’s decision to
grant summary judgment in favor of the Secretary based on
the same evidentiary record that the district court consulted.
    More generally, Rabenhorst argues that the district court
ignored evidence that he was a highly qualified and experi-
enced employee who was not afraid to call out his colleagues’
failure to comply with the professional and legal demands of
their jobs. Rabenhorst sees his history in this regard as the rea-
son why O’Leary and Arcurio singled him out for adverse
treatment. Of course, this gets him nowhere with his discrim-
ination claims unless he can somehow link any animus aris-
ing from this history of criticism to his age and/or sex. He
comes closest to doing so when he suggests that he was
booted from the Puerto Rico relief effort because his young,
inexperienced female co-workers did not want to be told what
to do by an older man. But with respect to that removal as
well as his unpaid suspension, Rabenhorst does not come to
grips with the misconduct that the Secretary has cited as the
legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for taking adverse action
against him—misconduct that for the most part he does not
factually dispute. Likewise, although Rabenhorst’s theory of
the case certainly bears the hallmarks of reprisal, he fails to
12                                                    No. 24-1297

link that reprisal to activity that is protected by Title VII, as he
must in order to prevail on his retaliation claim.
     Ultimately, as we explain below, Rabenhorst has not iden-
tified evidence that suggests he was treated less favorably
than younger and/or female employees who had engaged in
similar misconduct or that his discipline was tainted by ani-
mus based on age or sex or the fact that he had engaged in
activity protected by Title VII.
A. Age or sex discrimination
     As noted above in our summary of the district court’s de-
cision, one of the four requisites of a prima facie case of dis-
crimination under McDonnell Douglas is that the plaintiff was
meeting his employer’s work expectations. The district court
correctly found that Rabenhorst did not meet this element;
consequently, he failed to establish a prima facie case of dis-
crimination under McDonnell Douglas. During the August
2017 preparedness exercise, Rabenhorst had criticized his su-
pervisor (O’Leary) in crude terms to a FEMA contractor, and
then he violated O’Leary’s directive not to speak with con-
tractors the following day by speaking with another contrac-
tor about the exercise. And during his October 2017 deploy-
ment to Puerto Rico, Rabenhorst used abusive and demean-
ing language and otherwise treated his coworkers and supe-
riors inappropriately, culminating in his removal from the re-
lief operation. As he did below, Rabenhorst largely insists that
O’Leary and his other co-workers and superiors did not know
what they were doing, were violating FEMA rules and proce-
dures, and were otherwise incompetent, whereas he was do-
ing his job correctly and conscientiously.
No. 24-1297                                                   13

    But Rabenhorst fails to acknowledge the actual miscon-
duct for which he was disciplined. Even if we assume that
Rabenhorst’s perception of his superiors and coworkers was
correct, what he was disciplined for was the insubordination,
disrespect, and intemperance in the way he expressed his con-
cerns and interacted with co-workers and contractors. The
Secretary, like any other employer, has a legitimate interest in
having her employees respect the chain of command and fol-
low orders. Rabenhorst was twice admonished not to repeat
the sort of confrontational and insulting behavior he engaged
in with Michigan and Ohio officials in 2016 and 2017, and yet
in August 2017, he criticized his superior in crude terms to a
contractor during a preparedness exercise (and, after a warn-
ing not to interact with contractors, again spoke about the ex-
ercise with a contractor the very next day). Then, during the
Puerto Rico deployment in October, he condescended to, de-
meaned, and openly insulted his younger female co-workers
and his supervisors. Rabenhorst has not given us any reason
to question his employer’s conclusion that he was not meeting
the legitimate expectations of his position.
    Likewise, Rabenhorst failed to show that there were
younger and/or female workers who were similarly situated
to him, in that they engaged in comparable misconduct, but
who were treated more favorably. Again, he argues that the
young women he worked with in Puerto Rico, for example,
were not qualified for the work responsibilities assigned to
them and as a result did not carry out their assigned duties
effectively, but their purported lack of qualifications and abil-
ity is not comparable to his own misconduct: he presented no
evidence that they were guilty of inappropriate verbal con-
duct or insubordination.
14                                                     No. 24-1297

    Finally, as Judge Shah observed, Rabenhorst otherwise
identifies no evidence that either O’Leary (who suspended
him) or Arcurio (who both removed him from the Puerto Rico
operation and conveyed her negative assessment of
Rabenhorst’s conduct to O’Leary) were motivated by age or
sex in deciding to discipline him. He has failed to make a
prima facie showing of age or sex discrimination, and the ev-
idence in the aggregate does not otherwise give rise to an in-
ference that his age or sex played an animating role in the ad-
verse employment actions the Secretary took against him. See
Ortiz v. Werner Enters., Inc., 

 (7th Cir. 2016);
Gaines, 158 F.4th at 838 (quoting Vichio v. US Foods, Inc., 

 (7th Cir. 2023)).
B. Hostile environment
   There is an initial question whether Rabenhorst waived
consideration of his hostile environment claim, as he did not
meaningfully respond to the defendant’s arguments for sum-
mary judgment on this claim below. Even so, the district court
chose to address the claim on its merits. 

, at
*5–*6. We may set aside the waiver issue.
    The claim fails on its merits. Other than being marched out
of the Puerto Rico office under escort in a humiliating manner,
Rabenhorst has identified no facts suggesting that he was re-
quired to endure a hostile work environment. And that one
instance of harsh treatment, so far as the record shows, oc-
curred in execution of a legitimate disciplinary decision. Set-
ting aside all other questions as to the basis for the hostile en-
vironment claim, there is no evidence that any alleged harass-
ment or other adverse treatment of Rabenhorst was based on
his age or sex. See, e.g., Arnold v. United Airlines, Inc., 142 F.4th
No. 24-1297                                                                15

460, 476 (7th Cir. 2025) (plaintiff must show that the harass-
ment was based on membership in a protected class).
C. Retaliation in violation of Title VII
    Finally, the evidence does not establish a question of fact
barring summary judgment as to Rabenhorst’s claim that he
suffered retaliation as a result of engaging in conduct pro-
tected by Title VII. The only protected activity at issue is the
EEO complaint and related activity that Rabenhorst engaged
in between October and December 2017, following his return
from Puerto Rico. 4 It was after Rabenhorst filed his EEO com-
plaint that O’Leary decided to suspend Rabenhorst for 13
days, a disciplinary measure we agree amounts to an adverse
action that might dissuade someone from taking steps to in-
voke their statutory rights. But apart from the sequence of
events, there is no evidence suggesting that O’Leary’s deci-
sion may have been influenced by Rabenhorst’s EEO com-
plaint.



    4 In March 2016, Rabenhorst filed a whistleblower complaint with the

DHS Office of the Inspector General (followed up with complaints to other
officials) based on his concerns that O’Leary was improperly waiving dis-
aster-preparedness evaluation criteria; he also filed multiple grievances
after he gave O’Leary unsolicited counseling on regulatory requirements
and violations and he was reprimanded for insubordination and interfer-
ence for doing so. As the district court noted, his whistleblower complaint
and grievances do not qualify as protected activity for purposes of his re-
taliation claim in this case, as they were not conduct protected by Title VII.
See Alley v. Penguin Random House, 

 (7th Cir. 2023) (em-
ployee engages in activity protected by Title VII by either filing a charge
of discrimination or in some way participating in an investigation, pro-
ceeding, or hearing under Title VII or other employment statutes, or by
opposing an unlawful employment practice).
16                                                          No. 24-1297

    The evidence reflects that O’Leary had intended to pursue
discipline against Rabenhorst before Rabenhorst was de-
ployed to Puerto Rico, and so far as the record reveals, when
O’Leary learned from Arcurio of Rabenhorst’s behavior dur-
ing that deployment, that simply reinforced his intent and
propelled him forward. There is, we acknowledge, a dispute
of fact as to whether O’Leary was aware of Rabenhorst’s EEO
complaint when he proposed that Rabenhorst be suspended
(recall that Rabenhorst testified he advised O’Leary of his in-
tent to file that complaint). But beyond his purported
knowledge of the complaint, there is no evidence that O’Leary
disciplined Rabenhorst in part because of that complaint. To
the contrary, the evidence indicates that Rabenhorst was not
meeting his employer’s legitimate expectations, and it was his
failure in that regard that was the basis for O’Leary’s decision.
    Rabenhorst also ascribes malevolent motives to Arcurio
vis-à-vis his suspension, 5 but Arcurio was not the deci-
sionmaker in that regard. True, she reported Rabenhorst’s
misconduct in Puerto Rico to O’Leary and her reports obvi-
ously factored into O’Leary’s suspension decision, but there
is no evidence suggesting that she participated in the decision
to discipline Rabenhorst. 6
                                     III.
     We AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.



     5 Arcurio made two reports to O’Leary, the second of which post-

dated the commencement of Rabenhorst’s engagement with the DHS Of-
fice of Equal Rights.
     6 Rabenhorst does not pursue a “cat’s paw” theory vis-à-vis the nega-

tive reports that Arcurio made to O’Leary. See Gaines, 158 F.4th at 835.