UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA REGINA BROWN, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 20-3107 (TJK) ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Regina Brown, a black woman, sued the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act of 1963 for various discriminatory actions she allegedly experienced while employed by DHS. Defendant moves to dismiss all but one of Brown’s claims for failure to state a claim. Defendant argues that Brown insufficiently alleged most of her disparate-treatment, retaliation, and disparate-impact claims under Title VII, and her sex-based pay-discrimination claim under the Equal Pay Act. For the below reasons, the Court will grant Defendant’s partial motion to dismiss. I. Background According to the operative complaint, Defendant violated Title VII and the Equal Pay Act during Brown’s tenure as a Management and Program Analyst (“program manager”) at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a component of DHS. See ECF No. 20 (“Compl.”) ¶¶ 1, 7, 37–40. Brown claims: (A) disparate treatment based on her sex or race; (B) retaliation for engaging in protected activity; (C) disparate impact based on sex or race; and (D) sex-based pay discrimination. Id. ¶¶ 37–40. Below, the Court addresses the relevant allegations supporting each claim. A. Disparate-Treatment Claims Brown alleges that Defendant unlawfully carried out three employment actions based on Brown’s race or sex. In 2018, Brown served as program manager for the Border Enforcement Analytics Program (“BEAP”) at ICE. Compl. ¶ 19. The first unlawful employment action, Brown says, occurred in March 2018 when Brown’s supervisors “forcibly reassigned” her from BEAP to another ICE program known as FALCON. Id. ¶ 22. As part of the transfer, she had to hand over her BEAP responsibilities to two white, male special agents, Benjamin Teed and Evan Campanella. Id. And at her new FALCON post, she took on the duties of a co-worker two pay grades (“GS” levels) her junior. Id. ¶¶ 22, 33. Second, Brown claims Defendant overlooked her for a position once she had transferred to FALCON. Compl. ¶ 34. In August 2018, the unit chief announced that Campanella, not Brown, would immediately assume the role of acting section chief over the combined BEAP and FALCON programs, now renamed RAVEn.1 Id. ¶ 25. Brown alleges, however, that she was “more qualified for the promotions received by the white males,” including Campanella’s promotion, and she “desired to be promoted to [those] positions.” Id. ¶ 34. Third, Brown points to her second lateral transfer, this time from FALCON to HSINET/SharePoint, another ICE program. Compl. ¶¶ 26–29. Because of his promotion, Campanella had essentially become Brown’s acting first-line supervisor at FALCON. Id. ¶ 25. Thus, within a week of Campanella’s promotion, acting section chief of HSINET/SharePoint Matthew Grant “proposed” that Brown transition to HSINET/SharePoint, where she would continue to work as a program manager. Id. ¶ 26. This would place Brown outside Campanella’s supervision. Id. Then, in September 2018, Grant “requested that …
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