The opinion
USCA11 Case: 25-10894 Document: 30-1 Date Filed: 01/14/2026 Page: 1 of 8
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 25-10894
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
DAVID E. JACKSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,
Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, DC,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-03738-AT
____________________
Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
The Federal Aviation Administration operates “hundreds of
air traffic control facilities staffed by a highly trained, highly skilled
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2 Opinion of the Court 25-10894
workforce and thousands of air routes that safely carry” millions of
passengers across tens of thousands of flights each day. 1 To ensure
that its air traffic controllers stay sharp and up to date, the FAA
mandates periodic on-the-job training.
An Airway Transportation System Specialist at the FAA,
David Jackson faced a two-week suspension after he failed to timely
complete his training. Asserting that this rationale was pretext for
discrimination, he sued his employer under Title VII and the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act. But all evidence in the record
suggests that Jackson faced discipline for his tardiness—not his
race, age, or any protected activity. Because no reasonable jury
would conclude otherwise, we affirm the district court’s grant of
summary judgment in the employer’s favor.2
I.
Much of the following account comes from the employer’s
statement of material facts. The district court properly deemed
those facts admitted because Jackson did not respond with specific
and clear citations to the record, as Local Rule 56.1(B)(2)(a)(2)
requires. Rather, his response came with citations to
“unidentifiable documents,” referring to any one of the “373 pages
of exhibits that were not labeled or in any logical order and were
totally out-of-sequence.” We have said that compliance with Local
1 Fed. Aviation Admin., Safety: In the Air, https://www.faa.gov/safety/air
[https://perma.cc/9RR7-32E4] (last updated Sept. 10, 2025).
2 We deny all pending motions as moot.
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25-10894 Opinion of the Court 3
Rule 56.1 is “the only permissible way” for the nonmovant “to
establish a genuine issue of material fact” at the summary
judgment stage. Reese v. Herbert, 527 F.3d 1253, 1268 (11th Cir.
2008). “In the absence of such specific citations to evidence, the
court will deem each of the movant’s facts as admitted.” Id. at 1267
(quotation omitted). With that, we turn to the admitted facts.
For over three decades, Jackson has worked for the FAA’s
Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center. Under FAA policy,
specialists like Jackson must complete on-the-job training to obtain
“direct experience in the work environment where the employee is
required to perform his/her duties.” First-level managers must
“establish employees’ training schedules” and ensure that training
is “accomplished in a timely manner.” Though employees must
generally complete assigned trainings within 180 days, managers
have discretion to impose shorter deadlines.
In July 2015, Jackson’s manager Tina Cadrette assigned
training related to the FAA’s Wide Area Augmentation System—
“an extremely accurate navigation system” that “provides service
for all classes of aircraft in all phases of flight.” 3 This training takes
about ten hours: five with instructor Frank Bradley and another
five for self-study. Cadrette initially directed Jackson to complete
the training by late August. But seeing that Jackson might need
3 Fed. Aviation Admin., Satellite Navigation – Wide Area Augmentation System,
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_
units/techops/navservices/gnss/waas [https://perma.cc/XC4M-RGMH]
(last updated Dec. 9, 2025).
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4 Opinion of the Court 25-10894
more time, Cadrette agreed to a one-month extension. Leading up
to the new deadline, she reached out—multiple times—to remind
Jackson about the training, even offering to take work off his plate
so he could get it done. But one day before the deadline, Jackson
told Cadrette that he would not complete the training on time.
Cadrette then scheduled a meeting with Jackson to discuss
next steps. Jackson claimed that he had, in fact, timely completed
the training. But when Cadrette asked instructor Frank Bradley
about Jackson’s story, Bradley responded that Jackson had not
participated in any instructional sessions. After consulting her
manager and a human resources specialist, Cadrette admonished
Jackson and suspended him for two weeks.
Jackson says that he was suspended not because he failed to
comply with training protocols, but because he is black and over
forty years old. So he filed this lawsuit, alleging that his employer
engaged in disparate treatment and retaliation in violation of the
federal sector provisions of Title VII and the ADEA. See 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-16(a); 29 U.S.C. § 633a(a). After a year of discovery, the
district court granted the employer’s motion for summary
judgment. This is Jackson’s appeal.
II.
We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary
judgment. See McCreight v. AuburnBank, 117 F.4th 1322, 1329 (11th
Cir. 2024). A movant is entitled to summary judgment if he can
show that there is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact and
the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (quoting
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25-10894 Opinion of the Court 5
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). “A genuine issue of material fact exists when
the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict
for the non-moving party.” Id. (quotation omitted).
III.
We agree with the district court that there is not enough
evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that discrimination or
retaliation played any role in his suspension.
A.
The federal sector provisions of Title VII and the ADEA are
“essentially identical.” Babb v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Veterans Affs., 992 F.3d
1193, 1199–1200 (11th Cir. 2021). Both provide that “[a]ll personnel
actions affecting employees” “shall be made free from any
discrimination based on” some protected characteristic—whether
“race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (in the case of Title
VII) or “age” (the ADEA). See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16(a); 29 U.S.C.
§ 633a(a). To prevail under either statute, the plaintiff must show
that a discriminatory reason played some part in the decision-
making process, such that it is not “untainted” by discrimination.
Babb, 992 F.3d at 1204 (quotation omitted); see Buckley v. Sec’y of
Army, 97 F.4th 784, 793 (11th Cir. 2024).
In employment discrimination cases, a wide variety of
circumstantial evidence may be used to defeat a motion for
summary judgment—so long as the evidence is admissible and
“would allow a jury to infer intentional discrimination by the
decisionmaker.” Tynes v. Fla. Dep’t of Juv. Just., 88 F.4th 939, 946
(11th Cir. 2023) (quotation omitted). Here, Jackson rests his
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disparate treatment claims on evidence that, in his view, reflects
favorable treatment for employees who are neither black nor over
the age of forty. To be clear, comparator evidence is not the be-all
and end-all in employment discrimination cases: a “plaintiff’s
failure to produce a comparator does not necessarily doom the
plaintiff’s case.” Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328
(11th Cir. 2011); see Jimenez v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 146 F.4th 972, 997 (11th
Cir. 2025). But Jackson does not rely on other circumstantial
evidence of discrimination, such as “suspicious timing, ambiguous
statements, or other information from which discriminatory intent
may be inferred.” Tynes, 88 F.4th at 946 n.2 (quotation omitted).
Given Jackson’s decision to frame his case in this way, we will
consider whether his comparator evidence suffices to stave off
summary judgment.
For comparator evidence to support an inference of
discriminatory intent, the plaintiff and his comparators must be
“similarly situated in all material respects.” Lewis v. City of Union
City, 918 F.3d 1213, 1224–25 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc). As relevant
here, a similarly situated comparator “will have been subject to the
same employment policy, guideline, or rule” and “will have
engaged in the same basic conduct (or misconduct) as the plaintiff.”
Id. at 1227.
Jackson points to two colleagues who also worked for
Cadrette—Daniel Wheaton and Rey De Los Santos. But Wheaton
and Los Santos are “differently situated in material respects”:
Jackson did not point the district court to any evidence that they
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25-10894 Opinion of the Court 7
failed to meet any supervisor-imposed deadlines or were
untruthful in the course of any investigation. 4 See id. at 1228
(internal quotation marks omitted). Since they did not engage in
the same basic misconduct as Jackson, there is no reason to think
that they received favorable treatment by dint of their race or age—
or put differently, that Jackson’s suspension had anything to do with
his race or age. See Anthony v. Georgia, 69 F.4th 796, 805–06 (11th
Cir. 2023). Nothing in the record suggests that had Wheaton and
Los Santos failed to meet Cadrette’s deadlines and then tried to
hide it, they would have been treated any differently than Jackson.5
Jackson’s comparator evidence therefore rests on an improper
comparison. And without any evidence supporting an inference of
discriminatory animus, Jackson’s disparate treatment claims fail.
B.
Next, Jackson claims that Cadrette retaliated against him for
his December 2014 internal grievance complaining that Cadrette
held him “responsible for the completion of work that has been
assigned to other employees” and created “hostility and confusion
4 Relying on a document that appears to reflect Wheaton’s on-the-job training
history, Jackson contends that Wheaton took more than two years to
complete a particular course. But Jackson did not clearly cite this (or any
other) document in his response to the employer’s statement of material facts,
in violation of Local Rule 56.1(B)(2)(a)(2). Jackson cannot cure a defective
response by including the missing citations in his appellate briefs.
5 Jackson’s summary judgment filings did not point the district court to any
evidence indicating that Wheaton and Los Santos faced more lenient deadlines
on account of their race or age.
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within the unit” by “routinely” changing “[m]anagement
expectations and directions.”
To prove retaliation under Title VII, the plaintiff must
establish that he had “a good faith, reasonable belief that the
employer was engaged in unlawful employment practices.”
Furcron v. Mail Ctrs. Plus, LLC, 843 F.3d 1295, 1311 (11th Cir. 2016)
(quotation omitted). “Unfair treatment, absent discrimination
based on race, sex, or national origin, is not an unlawful
employment practice under Title VII.” Coutu v. Martin Cnty. Bd. of
Cnty. Comm’rs, 47 F.3d 1068, 1074 (11th Cir. 1995).
Jackson’s December 2014 grievance did not complain of
racial discrimination of any kind. In fact, Jackson concedes that his
grievance complained about Cadrette’s attempts to hold him
“accountable for work not performed when that work had been
assigned to two other employees.” Because the grievance does not
qualify as “statutorily protected activity,” no reasonable jury would
find in Jackson’s favor on his Title VII retaliation claims.6 Furcron,
843 F.3d at 1310.
* * *
We AFFIRM.
6 Jackson did not press retaliation claims under the ADEA.