United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-1821 JEBARI CRAIG, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WROUGHT WASHER MANUFACTURING, INC., Defendant-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 2:19-cv-01786 — Brett H. Ludwig, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 18, 2024 — DECIDED JULY 16, 2024 ____________________

Before RIPPLE, BRENNAN, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge. Jebari Craig worked for Wrought Washer Manufacturing, Inc. (“Wrought”) from December 2010 until his termination in April 2019. He brought this Title VII action alleging that Wrought retaliated against him for fil- ing a racial discrimination grievance. The complaint identi- fied three instances of retaliation, but this appeal concerns only one of those claims: that he was unlawfully terminated in retaliation for filing his racial discrimination grievance. The 2 No. 23-1821 district court granted summary judgment to Wrought on that claim. In doing so, the court relied on a contradictory declara- tion submitted by Wrought, the moving party, but did not consider a declaration submitted by Mr. Craig. For the rea- sons set forth in the following opinion, we affirm the judg- ment of the district court. I BACKGROUND A. Mr. Craig, who is black, worked at Wrought, a producer of washers, nuts, and bolts, from 2010 until his termination in 2019. He began his employment in the general labor pool but eventually worked his way up to a job in stamping. Through- out Mr. Craig’s employment with Wrought, Paul Schaefer was the plant manager. Mr. Craig became the union president in 2018. In this role, he negotiated the union’s contract with Wrought. During con- tract negotiations in 2018, Mr. Craig expressed his concerns to Schaefer about what he viewed as Wrought’s lack of minority leadership. Earlier, in 2017, he had expressed his concerns about racial discrimination at Wrought to Schaefer. On November 28, 2018, Mr. Craig got into a disagreement with a lead employee and a supervisor. This disagreement be- came a “yelling match” and worked its way up the shop floor and eventually to the front near Schaefer’s office. 1 After Schaefer and a union employee informed Mr. Craig that he was in the wrong, Mr. Craig went back to the shop floor and

1 R.27 ¶ 27. No. 23-1821 3 began writing a union grievance. Later that same day, Mr. Craig handed Schaefer a grievance alleging racial dis- crimination based on Schaefer’s lack of response to Mr. Craig’s concerns about racial disparities at Wrought. Handing this grievance to Schaefer constituted the first step of the union’s grievance process. On December 3, Schaefer gave Mr. Craig a written warn- ing for being loud and disruptive during the November 28 incident. Although Schaefer stated that Mr. Craig was “con- sistently loud, disruptive,” and that “[t]hat was the way he operated,” Mr. Craig had received no earlier discipline for his behavior. 2 Schaefer told Mr. Craig that Wrought “can’t have this kind of behavior” and that he needed “to get something on file” about the incident. 3 Schaefer and Mr. Craig met in early January 2019 to dis- cuss Mr. Craig’s allegations about the lack of minority leader- ship at Wrought. During the meeting, Mr. Craig expressed his concern that, compared to white employees, black employees at Wrought received fewer training opportunities, had less upward mobility, held inferior positions, and were subjected to racial dis