Beverly Burkett appeals a grant of summary judgment to her employer, the United States Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency (FSA), in her employment discriminatiоn action brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e through 2000e-17. Ms. Burkett, who is black, alleged that she was subjected to adverse employment actions and a hostile work еnvironment because of her race. We affirm the judgment of the district court. 1
*660 I.
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment
de novo. Rademeyer v. Farris,
We first address Ms. Burkеtt’s claim that she was denied promotions on the basis of her race. Ms. Burkett maintains that the FSA denied her a promotion on twenty-one separate occasions, each time awarding the position to a lesser qualified white person. An examination of the record indicates, however, that only one оf those incidents is properly before us.
Before the federal courts may hear a discrimination claim, an employee must fully exhaust her administrative remеdies. For a federal employee, this requires, as an initial matter, that she “initiate contact” with an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) counselor “within 45 days of the date of the matter alleged to be discriminatory” or of the effective date of the alleged discriminatory personnel action, 29 C.F.R. § 1614.105(a)(1);
see also Jensen v. Henderson,
Ms. Burkett has filed four EEO complaints with the FSA during the course of her employment, only three of which remain relevant on appeal, and only two of those, construed liberally, raised a failure-tо-promote claim. One of these two was filed after she consulted with an EEO counselor on May 31, 1994, but the record reveals that Ms. Burkett was not even denied a promotion within the 45 days preceding the contact. The other relevant EEO complaint, filed on March 24, 1998, raised only one failüre-to-promote claim thаt had arisen within the 45 days preceding Ms. Burkett’s contact with a counselor on December 8, 1997. The rest of the incidents that Ms. Burkett now complains of were not raisеd within the time that the Title VII regulations allot.
Ms. Burkett contends that her earlier failure-to-promote claims are timely because, along with the claim raised in hеr March 24 EEO complaint, they are part of a continuing violation of Title VII. But the Supreme Court has held that events “such as termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire” constitute completed acts at the time that they occur.
See National R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan,
Wе turn now to the failure-to-promote claim that Ms. Burkett raised in her March 24 EEO complaint. To prevail on this claim, Ms. Burkett must first establish a prima facie case оf discrimination.
See St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks,
509
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U.S. 502, 506,
When Ms. Burkett applied for the position at issue in this claim, she stated that the lowest grade level that she would accept was a grade level of nine. The FSA asserted below that because of a forecasted reduction-in-force it decided that its staffing needs would best be met by hiring only at grade level seven. For this reason, the FSA said, Ms. Burkett and all other applicants indicating acceptable grade levels other than seven were not considered for interviews.
Once the FSA articulated this nondiscriminatory justification for nоt promoting Ms. Burkett, it was entitled to summary judgment in the event that she could not produce evidence of pretext. The only evidence that Ms. Burkett offered on thе issue of pretext, however, was her own affidavit stating generally that she had been discriminated against. Without more specific evidence indicating that raсial animus played a part in the decision not to promote Ms. Burkett, a reasonable jury could not conclude that FSA’s articulated justification for failing tо do so was a pretext for illegal discrimination.
See, e.g., Berg v. Bruce,
II.
In addition to the failure-to-promote сlaims that we have already discussed, Ms. Burkett claims that she was discriminated against in several other respects. The district court held that Ms. Burkett produced no evidence showing pretext after the FSA articulated legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons for its decision to delay Ms. Burkett’s promotion from grade six to grade seven and for its decision not to award her a discretionary bonus. The district court also held that Ms. Burkett suffered no adverse employment action when she reсeived a letter of reprimand from her direct supervisor or when another FSA manager denied her access to his office because of a potential conflict of interest. After carefully reviewing the record, we are convinced that summary judgment was appropriate as to each of these claims.
III.
Ms. Burkett alleged in her complaint that she was “subjected to a hostile work environment, including being present during the utterance of racially prejudicial remarks by supervisors and by racially motivated hostile treatment by coworkers.” Ms. Burkett, however, offered no evidence that she was present when such rеmarks were made, nor did she indicate even approximately what they were. The only substantial supporting evidence that she offers for this claim is the deрosition testimony of a white co-worker stating that Gerald Steed, Ms. Burkett’s supervisor, had occasionally used the word “nigger” in front of certain FSA employees; whether those employees were black or white does not appear. In contrast, another one of Ms. Burkett’s witnesses, a black employee in thе same office, testified that he had never heard Mr. Steed use that word.
*662
The Supreme Court has made it clear that for a hostile work environment claim to suсceed, the alleged conduct “must be [so] extreme” that it amounts to a “change in the terms and conditions of employment.”
Faragher v. City of Boca Raton,
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the order of the district court granting summary judgment.
Notes
. The Honorable Susan Webber Wright, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.