United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2287 ROY SARGEANT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ARACELIE BARFIELD, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. No. 19 C 50187 — Iain D. Johnston, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MARCH 27, 2023 — DECIDED NOVEMBER 28, 2023 ____________________

Before HAMILTON, SCUDDER and PRYOR, Circuit Judges. PRYOR, Circuit Judge. The question before us is whether a federal prisoner can bring a Bivens action alleging that a prison official failed to protect him from violent attacks by his cellmates. After the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in this area, the answer is no. 2 No. 21-2287

I. BACKGROUND A. Factual History We recount the facts as alleged in the complaint. See Schil- linger v. Kiley, 954 F.3d 990, 994 (7th Cir. 2020). Roy Sargeant is a federal prisoner, and this case arises from retaliatory acts taken against him by Aracelie Barfield, who was Sargeant’s case manager, responsible for evaluating his progress in prison. The dispute between Sargeant and Barfield began with grievances. Sargeant filed a grievance against another prison official, Nicole Cruze, after she commented on his sexual pref- erences and refused to give him some books that he had or- dered. When Barfield showed Sargeant the prison’s response to one of those grievances, he noticed that it was signed by Cruze and pointed out that, under the prison’s rules, Cruze should not have seen a grievance lodged against her. Appar- ently unhappy with Sargeant’s remarks, Barfield “angrily” told others about the grievance. This led Sargeant to file a sep- arate grievance against Barfield. In retaliation, Barfield “repeatedly” put Sargeant in cells with prisoners that she knew were violent. As a “program- ming” prisoner with a “non-active protected custody” status, Sargeant alleged that Barfield violated policy by housing him with “active” prisoners on several occasions. At oral argu- ment, Sargeant’s attorney explained that programming status means a prisoner has cooperated with the government, while active status means that a prisoner has not cooperated. Pre- dictably, this led to “some fights” between Sargeant and his cellmates, before he was transferred to another prison. No. 21-2287 3

B. Procedural History Proceeding without an attorney, Sargeant sued Barfield seeking monetary damages. He alleged that Barfield retali- ated against him for filing grievances. He did not, however, identify in his complaint which of his constitutional rights she had allegedly violated. Because Sargeant is a prisoner, the district judge initially assigned to his case, Judge Durkin, had to screen his com- plaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. In doing so, Judge Durkin decided that Sargeant could proceed only on a First Amendment retaliation claim and dismissed “any other in- tended claims.” Judge Durkin did not discuss whether the al- legations in the complaint stated an Eighth Amendment cause of action. Barfield moved to dismiss the complaint on grounds that, under the Bivens doctrine, a federal prisoner cannot recover damages for a violation of First Amendment rights. Because of the complexity of that issue, Magistrate Judge Jensen ap- pointed counsel for Sargeant. The case was then transferred from Judge Durkin to Judge Johnston who, after briefing, agreed with Barfield and dismissed the complaint with prej- udice. II. DISCUSSION On appeal, Sargeant abandons his First Amendm