EMILY VINCENT

v.

ATI HOLDINGS LLC

BRASHER, Circuit Judge:

Emily Vincent worked as an athletic trainer for ATI Holdings LLC, a contractor that places athletic trainers at local schools. Vincent was placed at Pinson Valley High School, where she worked with its football team. After ATI removed Vincent from Pinson Valley at the request of its principal and assigned her to another school, she sued ATI for sex discrimination and retaliation under Title VII. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. The district court granted summary judgment for ATI, and Vincent appealed.

Vincent maintains that she presented enough evidence to survive summary judgment on both her discrimination claim and retaliation claim. But, after careful review and oral argument, we conclude that (1) Vincent's claim that ATI removed her because of her sex fails because there is no evidence that ATI knew or should have known that the principal's request to remove her from Pinson Valley was sex-based; (2) Vincent's claim that she was offered a discriminatory reassignment fails because there is no evidence that ATI offered the reassignment options it did because of Vincent's sex; and (3) Vincent's retaliation claim fails because there is no evidence that ATI removed or reassigned her because she engaged in protected activity under Title VII. So, we affirm.

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I.

A.

ATI is a rehabilitation services provider that specializes in sports medicine among other fields. As part of its services, ATI contracts with local schools to provide athletic trainers for their sports programs. ATI and Pinson Valley High School entered into such a contract. That contract required ATI to assign two individuals to provide athletic training services for the school.

Vincent worked for ATI as an athletic trainer under the supervision of Jason Pequette, ATI's sports medicine director. In 2017, ATI assigned Vincent to Pinson Valley, where she worked largely with the school's football team. There, she was supervised in part by the school's principal, Michael Turner.

During that year, Vincent reported to ATI that Chris Woodard, the other ATI athletic trainer at Pinson Valley, had allowed football players to talk about sex and simulate sex acts in an athletic training room. Soon after, an ATI manager informed Vincent that ATI was going to transfer her to a different high school. But after Vincent opposed the transfer, believing it was retaliation for her complaints about Woodard, she remained at Pinson Valley. ATI instead transferred Woodard to another school.

ATI placed at Pinson Valley another athletic trainer, Heath Blackmon, in 2019. Believing that Blackmon was doing a poor job at his trainer duties, Vincent reported her concerns to Turner. At Turner's request, Vincent documented Blackmon's issues and

emailed her observations to ATI staff. Shortly after, Turner emailed Pequette requesting that Blackmon be removed from Pinson Valley immediately. ATI complied. After Blackmon was removed from Pinson Valley, Pequette “gathered information from area supervisors about what positions were available” and “let Blackmon elect which location he preferred to transfer to.” Doc. 54-1 at 4. Blackmon's pay did not decrease after his transfer.

In February 2020, about a month before Blackmon's removal, Pinson Valley had hired Sam Shade as its head football coach and athletic director. Vincent worked with the football team as the only woman under Shade. According to Vincent, on May 27 of that year, Turner asked her to be Pinson Valley's assistant athletic director, a position separate from her job as an athletic trainer. That position would require her to help football staff manage facilities and paperwork, and to ensure compliance with COVID-19 protocols. Four days later, Shade scheduled a meeting with other football coaches, and Vincent introduced herself at the meeting “as the athletic trainer and assistant athletic director.” Doc. 54-3 at 23- 24, 27.

But on June 3, 2020, Turner told Vincent that she would no longer hold her position as assistant athletic director and asked her to return to performing only her athletic trainer duties. According to Vincent, Turner did not explain his reasoning. Around the same time, Vincent asked one of her supervisors at ATI if there were other athletic trainer assignments around Birmingham; the

supervisor told her about “a couple of high schools” where she could keep the same pay, including Chelsea High School. Doc. 54- 3 at 64.

The morning of June⁵, 2020, Pequette emailed Turner: “I understand that we have some issues with [Vincent] and may need to move on. Hoping to discuss. Let me know when you are free." Doc. 65-14 at 12. Pequette testified at his deposition that sometime before he emailed Turner, someone whom Pequette could not remember had told him to contact Turner because Turner "had some issues” with Vincent. Doc. 54-12 at 13-15. So later that morning, Pequette and Turner spoke on the phone; Turner conveyed that "he wanted Vincent removed from performing athletic training services at Pinson Valley." Doc. 54-1 at 4; Doc. 54-5 at 60–62. Pequette then emailed Laura Erickson, a human resources partner at ATI, about the call. He wrote that the school would tell Vincent that day that it did not want her to return, and that Turner "would officially document the request to remove her with valid reasoning and send it over.” Doc. 65-27 at 2. Erickson asked if this was the first time "we have heard of these concerns” or if there had been "ongoing issues.” Id. at 3. Pequette replied: “It's a longer story. But yes on going [sic].” Id. at 5.

Near the end of that day, Turner asked Shade to go to Vincent's office to tell her to give up her keys. Shade complied, arriving at Vincent's office that day with other coaching staff to tell her to leave her keys before she left the school. Shortly before Vincent left, she called Pequette and told him "what happened." Doc. 54-3

at 57. According to Vincent, Pequette said on the call that “he was completely unaware and wanted to know what had been going on at Pinson.” Id. Vincent asked "why three men just came into my office [and] told me to leave my keys," and Pequette responded "to play nice and leave your keys and we'll talk on Monday,” June⁸, 2020. Id. According to Vincent, she also complained to Pequette on that call that she believed her exit had to do with Shade's discomfort working with women. June⁵, 2020 was the last day Vincent worked at Pinson Valley.

On June 7, 2020, Dave Bush, a manager at ATI, contacted Shade to let him know that Alex Gee would be "taking over” Vincent's duties the next day. Doc. 54-9 at 15. Bush later averred that he had identified Gee as Blackmon's replacement before he had ever learned Vincent was being removed from Pinson Valley, and that when he learned on June⁵ that Vincent would not return to Pinson Valley, he believed the school would have no athletic trainer from ATI at all because "Blackmon's replacement had not yet started." Doc. 54-2 at 3. Later on June 22, 2020, Taylor Cole, a female employee of ATI, also began as an athletic trainer at Pinson Valley. Pequette averred that he had identified Cole as a “replacement to fill the vacancy left open after Pinson Valley removed Vincent[.]" Doc. 54-1 at 7.

On June⁸, 2020, Pequette followed up with Turner, asking Turner for further documentation on why he wanted Vincent removed. Turner replied over email that Vincent “created somewhat of a toxic work environment for some of our coaches," made

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"personal comments” about them, and “attempted to assert her 'authority' by giving guidance and directions to coaches that have absolutely nothing to do with her role as an athletic trainer.” Doc. 54-5 at 61; 54-8 at 66. Turner stated that he had spoken to Vincent about "her behavior as it relates to her role as an athletic trainer versus attempting to tell coaches how they should do their jobs," but then heard from Shade that Vincent “decided to voice her dissatisfaction with her role as simply [] an athletic trainer" and "went on making derogatory comments about certain coaches.” Id.

Turner testified that the reasons he laid out in this June⁸ email were consistent with what he and Pequette had discussed in their June⁵ phone call.

That same day, Pequette forwarded Turner's email to Erickson. At his deposition, Pequette admitted that the allegations in Turner's email had not, to his knowledge, ever been documented. Erickson asked Pequette if he had documentation on other issues previously reported to Pequette about Vincent. He replied that some of Vincent's prior issues occurred when ATI was not yet documenting issues in its “Dayforce” system, but that ATI had “removed two different [athletic trainers] from Pinson Valley over the years because [Vincent] could not get along with them or claimed they were not competent [athletic trainers].” Doc. 65-31 at 2. He continued: "We have had issues with [Vincent's] drama and constant complaints and accusations internally and with school employees." Id. Erickson replied that this was not enough to terminate Vincent's employment at ATI, but recommended Pequette to

notify Vincent that she could no longer continue at Pinson Valley and to "offer her all open positions within [Alabama].” Doc. 65-32 at 2.

Sometime the week of June⁸, Pequette and Vincent spoke on the phone again. Vincent complained to Pequette, as she did earlier on June⁵, that she believed the school's removal decision had to do with Shade's discomfort working with women. Pequette responded that she lacked proof and described her complaint as a "he said, she said” situation. Doc. 54-3 at 60.

On June 11, 2020, ATI offered Vincent three new work assignments that she could choose from: (1) a split position between Oakman High School and Carbon Hill High School; (2) a position at Pelham Middle School; and (3) a position at Oak Mountain Middle School. The high-school position offered the same pay, and the middle-school positions offered lower pay and would require Vincent to assist at high school events various days of the week.

According to Pequette, Vincent was offered "all available athletic trainer assignments at central Alabama schools as of the date of the offer" and "available" assignments included "all known assignments that were not filled by another athletic trainer or offered to another individual.” Doc. 54-1 at 5–6. Vincent testified at her deposition, however, that some time before she left Pinson Valley on June⁵, an ATI supervisor had told her that there were a few high-school and middle-school positions open, including one at Chelsea High School. An email that Pequette had sent Erickson on June 3, 2020 also contained a list of openings that included more

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schools than what ATI offered Vincent on June 11. When asked at his deposition why these positions were not offered to Vincent, Pequette explained that Vincent was offered "all of the open positions at the time of the offer, that sometimes ATI already had a supervisor or other candidate in mind for an opening but had not yet posted the opening, and that ATI could not offer an employee a job "if a plan is already in place and conversations are en route" to hire someone else. Doc. 54-12 at 49-51.

Vincent did not want to take the split high school assignment, in part because it would require her to cover two high schools instead of one. The middle-school positions, in turn, required a pay cut. But on June 15, 2020, Vincent accepted the position at Pelham Middle School, emailing Erickson and Pequette that she believed her reassignment was sex discrimination and retaliation for her complaints of sex discrimination.

In response, Erickson set up a call between her, Vincent and Pequette. In that call, Erickson told Vincent that Pinson Valley's removal request was not discriminatory or retaliatory, and offered Vincent a severance package with two weeks of continued pay if she did not want to accept the Pelham Middle School position. Vincent resigned from ATI in July 2020.

B.

Vincent filed suit against ATI. Her amended complaint alleged that ATI engaged in sex discrimination (count four) and retaliation (count five) when it removed her from Pinson Valley and

when it assigned her to another school. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. She also brought claims against the Jefferson County Board of Education, Turner, and Shade, but those claims—which were either resolved via joint stipulation or dismissed without prejudice—are not at issue on appeal.

After the close of discovery, ATI filed a motion for summary judgment. The district court granted that motion, concluding that, although a genuine dispute existed as to whether ATI had control over Vincent's removal, Vincent failed to establish that ATI discriminated or retaliated against her, whether in the removal or reassignment. This appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo a grant of summary judgment, affirming that judgment only if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Yelling v. St. Vincent's Health Sys., 82 F. 4th 1329, 1332 (11th Cir. 2023). We view the evidence and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Id.

III.

Vincent argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for ATI on her discrimination and retaliation claims. We begin by addressing the district court's determination that a genuine dispute existed as to whether ATI had control over Vincent's removal in the first place. We then address Vincent's

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claim of discriminatory removal and reassignment. Finally, we address her claim of retaliatory removal and reassignment.

A.

To assess whether ATI discriminated or retaliated against Vincent by removing her from Pinson Valley, the district court first asked whether ATI had control over her removal at all. It concluded that whether ATI had such control is a genuine issue of disputed fact. We agree with the district court.

1.

To start, the parties do not dispute that for Vincent to succeed on her discriminatory and retaliatory removal claims, she needed to establish that ATI had a modicum of control over her removal in the first place. And indeed, a threshold control requirement coheres with Title VII's text and the objective of Vincent's suit.

Vincent's discriminatory removal claim implicates 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) and 2000e-2(m), and her retaliatory removal claim implicates 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). Two of these provisions—sections 2000e-2(a)(1) and 2000e-3(a)—prohibit an "employer" from engaging in unlawful action. To decide whether an entity is an employer for Title VII purposes, we have examined "who (or which entity) is in control of the fundamental aspects of the employment relationship that gave rise to the claim.” Peppers v. Cobb County, 835 F. 3d 1289, 1297 (11th Cir. 2016) (internal marks omitted). We examine "(1) how much control the alleged employer exerted on the

employee, and (2) whether the alleged employer had the power to hire, fire, or modify the terms and conditions of the employee's employment." Id.

The third provision, section 2000e-2(m), does not mention “employer,” but states that an "unlawful employment practice is established" when a complainant “demonstrates that sex. was a motivating factor for any employment practice, even though other factors also motivated the practice." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(m). Here, the entity that Vincent seeks to hold liable for a sex-motivated "unlawful employment practice" is ATI. Absent a theory of vicarious liability, which Vincent does not allege, it would make no sense to hold ATI liable for an unlawful employment practice motivated by sex if ATI had no control whatsoever over that practice. In other words, if ATI lacked control over Vincent's removal, we could not say that ATI was responsible for removing Vincent or that sex motivated ATI to remove her.

2.

We agree with the district court that a genuine dispute exists as to whether ATI had a modicum of control over Vincent's removal from Pinson Valley. ATI contends that it had no such control because Turner instructed ATI to remove Vincent, and because Pinson Valley staff entered Vincent's office to tell her to leave her keys before Turner sent his email to Pequette memorializing his reasons for wanting Vincent removed. So, ATI argues, this case is just like Llampallas v. Mini-Circuits, Lab, Inc., where we held that a non-profit corporation that “made no decisions that affected the

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terms and conditions of [a plaintiffs] employment" at another company, could not have been that plaintiff's "employer" for the purposes of her Title VII claim alleging that she had been discriminatorily fired from that company. 163 F. 3d 1236, 1244–45 (11th Cir. 1998); see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).

We disagree. Unlike in Llampallas—where the non-profit had "absolutely nothing to do with [the] decision” to terminate the plaintiff, 163 F. 3d at 1245—evidence here suggests that ATI had at least some control over Vincent's removal from Pinson Valley. For one, ATI's contract with Pinson Valley provides that ATI “shall remain solely liable for the oversight and performance” of its athletic trainers. Doc. 54-1 at 11 12. Further, Turner testified at his deposition that it was ATI's decision to remove Vincent, because she was ATI's employee and not Pinson Valley's. And Turner's email to Pequette on June⁸ ended with Turner “asking” for Vincent to be removed from the school, just as Turner had earlier emailed Pequette "requesting" that Blackmon be removed. Doc. 54-8 at 57, 66. This evidence raises a genuine dispute as to whether ATI's approval was necessary to ultimately remove Vincent from Pinson Valley. Thus, for the purposes of summary judgment, we assume that ATI had control over Vincent's removal and was her employer under Title VII.

B.

With that issue behind us, we turn to Vincent's sex discrimination claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), (m). A plaintiff asserting a Title VII sex discrimination claim can do so in several ways: (1) a

mixed-motive or “motivating factor" theory, see Quigg v. Thomas Cnty. Sch. Dist., 814 F. 3d 1227, 1239 (11th Cir. 2016)¹; (2) the burden-shifting framework of McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973)²; or (3) a convincing mosaic-simply put, the summary judgment standard itself, see McCreight v. AuburnBank, 117 F. 4th 1322, 1335 (11th Cir. 2024). Under all three approaches, Vincent argues that a reasonable jury could conclude that ATI discriminated against her based on sex (1) when it removed her from Pinson Valley and (2) when it assigned her to another school.

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1.

We begin with the removal claim. The parties do not dispute that Vincent's removal from Pinson Valley was an adverse employment action. The question, broadly, is whether sex was a "motivating factor” or the “true reason” behind that removal—or, put another way, whether a jury could reasonably conclude that ATI discriminated against Vincent because of her sex. See Quigg, 814 F. 3d at 1237, 1239; McCreight, 117 F. 4th at 1335. The answer is no.

For starters, Vincent's argument for discriminatory removal is not that ATI independently decided to remove her from Pinson Valley because of her sex. Instead, she argues that Pinson Valley requested to remove her because of her sex and ATI is liable for honoring that request. The theory is that, even if ATI did not itself harbor discriminatory animus against Vincent, it can nevertheless be liable under Title VII because it "acquiesced to [Pinson Valley's] discriminatory request to have Vincent removed from the school." Appellant's Br. at 24. And a staffing firm acquiesces to a client's discrimination, Vincent suggests, when the firm "knew or should have known" of the client's discrimination yet honored the client's discriminatory request or otherwise failed to take “immediate” or "corrective actions." See id. at 17 (stating, without proper attribution, that "[a]n employer may be liable for discriminatory conduct, including retaliation, by non-employees 'where the employer either ratifies or acquiesces in the [conduct] by not taking immediate

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and/or corrective actions when it knew or should have known of the conduct.").

Similarly, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed an amicus brief, invites us to adopt a liability standard used by at least three other circuits. That standard would hold a staffing firm liable for its client's discrimination if (1) the firm "participates in the client's discrimination,” for instance, by honoring a "client's request to remove a worker from a job assignment for a discriminatory reason," or (2) the firm "knows or should have known of the client's discrimination but fails to take corrective measures within its control.” Burton v. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., 798 F. 3d 222, 228–29 (5th Cir. 2015) (citation modified); see Whitaker v. Milwaukee County, 772 F. 3d 802, 812 (7th Cir. 2014); EEOC v. Glob. Horizons, Inc., 915 F. 3d 631, 641 (9th Cir. 2019). See also Restatement (First) of Torts § 876 (1939) (a person is liable for harm that another causes a third party to suffer if the person “knows that the other's conduct constitutes a breach of duty and gives substantial assistance to the other so to conduct himself'); id. § 877 (stating that a person is liable for harm to a third party if the person "permits [another] to act upon his premises or with his instrumentalities, knowing or having reason to know that the other is acting or will act tortiously”); Dillon v. AFBIC Dev. Corp., 597 F. 2d 556, 562 (5th Cir. 1979) (real estate agent was liable under the Fair Housing Act for his "participation” in a homeowner's racially motivated refusal of a purchase offer, when the agent “knew” the refusal was racially motivated).

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Although Vincent and the EEOC argue that ATI is liable under this standard, we disagree. We need not decide today whether to follow these other circuits. Instead, we will assume without deciding that Vincent and the EEOC are correct that a staffing firm cannot honor a client's request that the firm knows or should know is discriminatory. But, even entertaining this assumption, we believe Vincent's discriminatory removal claim fails because no reasonable jury could conclude that ATI knew or should have known that Vincent's sex was why Pinson Valley asked that she be removed.

Vincent's claim fails because there is no evidence that Turner told or suggested to Pequette that he wanted Vincent removed from the school because of her sex. Instead, when Pequette asked Turner for documentation explaining why Turner wanted Vincent removed, Turner wrote that Vincent had created a “toxic work environment” for some of the coaches by making “personal comments" about them; that she had attempted to give directions to coaches in a way that exceeded her role as an athletic trainer; and that Shade had told him that Vincent made derogatory comments about other coaches. Doc. 54-8 at 66. These reasons, Turner testified at his deposition, were consistent with what he and Pequette had discussed in their phone call a few days earlier. None of these reasons suggested to Pequette that Vincent's sex had motivated Turner's request for her removal.

works.

In response, Vincent makes three arguments, but none

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First, she points to evidence that she suggests establishes that ATI knew it was being asked to remove her from Pinson Valley because of her sex. Specifically, Vincent says that (1) ATI replaced her with Alex Gee, a male coach; (2) Pequette, when asked at his deposition how he would respond if Turner said he did not want any black athletic trainers, replied that this was “not how ATI operates" suggesting, in Vincent's view, that ATI could identify discriminatory requests but cared more about race discrimination than sex discrimination; and (3) when asked at his deposition what he did in response to Vincent's complaint about discrimination, Pequette testified that "one of the things we did was keep her at ATI and offer her a position outside of an environment that was clearly not working on either side, by the school or for [Vincent]." Appellant's Br. at 22–24; Doc. 54-12 at 21–24. We disagree that these facts could establish actual knowledge on the part of ATI. Pequette's testimony at his deposition suggests nothing at all about his knowledge of why Pinson Valley requested that Vincent be removed; he was testifying about ATI's non-discrimination policy and about ATI's effort to accommodate Pinson Valley's request without terminating Vincent's employment at ATI. It is true that Gee, a male athletic trainer, started at ATI shortly after Vincent was removed, but he filled a vacancy left by Blackmon, another male trainer. And, only a few weeks after Vincent left Pinson Valley, ATI assigned Cole, a female, to the school as the second (out of two) athletic trainers.

Second, Vincent suggests that ATI should have known it was participating in discrimination because it should have discounted

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the reasons that Pinson Valley gave for wanting her removed. Specifically, Vincent says that: (1) she complained to Pequette that she thought her removal had to do with Shade's discomfort working with women; and (2) Pinson Valley's reasons for requesting her removal were suspicious because, for example, Pinson Valley had issues with Vincent's work performance only after it hired Shade and ATI had not previously documented any workplace issues stemming from Vincent's fault. We disagree. ATI's documents have no bearing on the credibility of Pinson Valley's non-sex-based reasons for requesting Vincent's removal. And those reasons—which included her attempts to instruct coaches in ways that exceeded her authority, and which arguably echoed Pequette's own recollection of Vincent's issues with Woodard and Blackmon—were not belied by the timing of Pinson Valley's removal request. To doubt these reasons, Pequette would need to accept—on the basis of Vincent's uncorroborated allegation that Shade was uncomfortable working with women-that Shade was actually uncomfortable in this way, that Shade's supposed sex discrimination motivated him to complain about Vincent to Turner, and that this discriminatory purpose ultimately played a role in Turner requesting Vincent's removal. It may be, as Vincent says, that Shade was motivated by sexism, and his sexism carried through to Turner, and Pinson's Valley's non-sex-based reasons for asking for Vincent's removal were pretextual, but we cannot say that a reasonable person in Pequette's position should have known of this motivation based on the information he had.

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Third, Vincent says that ATI cannot avoid liability because it did not do more to investigate Pinson Valley's motivations in light of her allegations. We disagree. Even assuming, again, that a staffing firm could be liable under Title VII for knowingly assisting a client's discrimination, that liability standard would not impose a standalone burden on the firm to investigate the client's purported discrimination. In other words, even under that standard, if nothing establishes that a staffing firm knew or should have known of a client's discrimination, the firm cannot nonetheless be liable just because it did not investigate the slightest allegation of discrimination at the client site. Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating; it does not impose a freestanding obligation on staffing firms to formally investigate the motivations of their clients. Cf. Llampallas, 163 F. 3d at 1250 (“We hesitate to require an employer to investigate . . . every action of its employees that could be motivated by a discriminatory animus.”). Nor does Title VII give a staffing firm special tools to conduct a formal investigation into another entity's reasons for making a request. And, neither Vincent nor the EEOC has explained how such an investigation should end—for example, how ATI should ultimately adjudicate Vincent's allegations about Pinson Valley's motivations.

Vincent's unsubstantiated comments about Shade's alleged discomfort working with women did not create an obligation under Title VII for ATI to launch an investigation of Pinson Valley. We reject the premise that, to lack constructive knowledge of discrimination, a staffing firm must itself dig up all the potential evidence around its client's rationale for making a request. That

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premise would shoehorn into the concept of constructive knowledge, investigative duties that Title VII does not impose. Here, Pequette finalized Vincent's removal after requesting and receiving from Turner nondiscriminatory written reasons for removal that were not undermined by Vincent's comments and that matched what Turner explained on an earlier phone call. On these facts, we cannot say that ATI knowingly assisted a discriminatory action.

For these reasons, Vincent's discriminatory removal claim fails, whether on a mixed-motive or convincing-mosaic approach, or on the McDonnell Douglas framework, which we assume without deciding that Vincent can raise on appeal despite not arguing it below. [fn¹] As for mixed-motive analysis and a convincing mosaic, Vincent has not established that sex was a reason or “motivating factor” in ATI's decision to ultimately remove her from Pinson Valley. See Quigg, 814 F. 3d at 1239; McCreight, 117 F. 4th at 1335. Likewise, because nothing suggests that Pinson Valley's removal request was facially discriminatory or that ATI otherwise knew or should have known

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it was based on sex, the second and third steps of the McDonnell Douglas framework resolve in ATI's favor: honoring the school's request was not an illegitimate reason for removal, see Lewis v. City of Union City, 918 F. 3d 1213, 1221 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc) (requiring defendant to offer a “legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its actions" to shift burden back to plaintiff); and sex—which was not even a reason for removal—was not "the true reason" for her removal either, see Quigg, 814 F. 3d at 1237 (explaining what a plaintiff must prove to establish pretext at the third and last stage of the McDonnell Douglas framework).