This case centers around United Parcel Service’s nonfraternization policy, which forbids a manager from having a romantic relationship with any hourly employee, even an employee the manager does not supervise. The purpose of this policy, according to UPS, is to prevent favoritism and the perception of favoritism. The policy extends to workers outside of a manager’s supervisory authority because UPS says it frequently transfers managers and a manager could end up supervising any hourly employee. Unsurprisingly, this policy does not stop Cupid’s arrow from striking at UPS. As the discovery taken in this case reveals, intracompany dating is prevalent, although employees often take precautions to keep their relationships secret. Gerald Ellis was one such employee, but, unfortunately for him, he got caught. Ellis, who is an African-American, 1 sued UPS claiming it fired him because of his race and because he is married to a white woman, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The district court granted summary judgment for UPS, and Ellis appeals.
Because this case comes to us at the summary judgment stage, we set out the facts in the light most favorable to Ellis, the nonmoving party.
See Nichols v. S. Ill. Univ.-Edwardsville,
In February 2004 Ellis admitted to Wade that he was dating Greathouse. Wade testified at her deposition that she told Ellis he was “crazy” for dating Great-house because, she explained, the relationship violated UPS’s non-fraternization policy. She told Ellis that he or Greathouse would have to quit or Ellis would be fired. Wade reported the relationship to her supervisor, division manager Derick Craft. Craft, who is also an African-American, met with Wade and Ellis to discuss the relationship, and Ellis fessed up that he was dating Greathouse. Craft told Ellis that he was “crazy” to date “the white girl from the call center,” and he ordered Ellis to meet with Kenny Walker, the human resources manager for the Indiana district, the next day. At that meeting, Walker, who like Baker, Wade, and Craft, is also an African-American, questioned Ellis about his relationship. Walker described the nonfraternization policy to Ellis, explained that Ellis’s relationship with Greathouse violated the policy, and told Ellis that he had to “rectify the situation.” Ellis testified that he understood that Walker expected him to end the relationship. Walker did not follow up with Ellis or ask him whether he stopped seeing Greathouse. Walker testified that when implementing the nonfraternization policy it was his practice to explain the policy to the manager and to give the manager the option of ending the relationship or deciding which member of the couple would be let go. Walker said that he took managers at their word when they told him they would comply with the policy. Although Ellis testified that Walker did not tell him explicitly that resignation was an option, Ellis said that he and Greathouse discussed whether one of them should leave UPS.
Ellis did not end the relationship and neither did he or Greathouse resign. Instead, three days after the meeting with Walker- — on Valentine’s Day, no less — -Ellis and Greathouse became engaged. A little over a year later, in April 2005, they were married. Ellis testified that he believed that their marriage brought him into compliance with the nonfraternization policy, although he admitted that he never asked Walker whether a marriage between a manager and an hourly employee violated the policy and never told Walker that he and Greathouse were married.
After they were married, Ellis and Greathouse still did not tell others at UPS about their relationship. But in July 2005, 3 months after their wedding and 17 months after Walker met with Ellis and discussed the UPS nonfraternization policy, Walker saw Ellis at a concert acting affectionately with a white woman. Walker later told Baker what he had seen, and she guessed, based on Walker’s description, that the woman on the receiving end of Ellis’s affections at the concert was Greathouse. Later that month, Walker met with Robert Severson, a district manager, and told him that Ellis might be in violation of the nonfraternization policy. Severson told Walker to investigate and to review his findings with Lawrence Lewis, who is the North Central Region human resources manager, and a UPS in-house lawyer. District human resources managers, like Walker, consult with Lewis before disciplining employees so Lewis can ensure that policies are being enforced uniformly throughout the region. They also *826 speak to in-house attorneys so that UPS can avoid unnecessary legal exposure. After consulting with Lewis and counsel, Walker determined that Ellis was in violation of the nonfraternization policy and that the “problem” had to be resolved. He met with Ellis and learned that Ellis and Greathouse were married. He then asked Ellis to resign. When Ellis refused, Walker fired him for violating the nonfraterni-zation policy and for dishonesty. Walker, Severson, and Lewis testified at their depositions that Walker made the final decision to fire Ellis.
In granting UPS’s motion for summary judgment, the district court determined that Ellis had not put forward sufficient direct or circumstantial evidence of discrimination to allow him to proceed by the direct method of proof. It then concluded he failed to present enough evidence to make out a prima facie case under the indirect method of proof because he could not show that any similarly situated employees who were involved in intraracial relationships at UPS were treated more favorably. Furthermore, even if he had come forward with enough evidence to establish a prima facie case, the court concluded that he could not show that UPS’s reason for firing him was a pretext for discrimination.
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
de novo. See Nichols,
Ellis first argues that, under both the indirect and direct methods of proof, he put forward sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on his claim that UPS fired him because he was involved in an interracial relationship. We have not yet decided whether an employer violates Title VII if it discriminates against an employee because the employee is involved in a relationship with a person of another race.
See Ineichen v. Ameritech,
For Ellis to make out a prima facie case under the indirect method of proof,
see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green,
But most of Ellis’s purported comparators are not similarly situated to him because they were not subject to the same decisionmaker as Ellis when they purportedly violated the policy. Different deci-sionmakers may rely on different factors when deciding whether, and how severely, to discipline an employee.
See Radue v. Kimberly-Clark Corp.,
So to avoid summary judgment, Ellis had to show that Walker treated managers in
intra
racial relationships with hourly employees more favorably, but the undisputed evidence showed that Walker was not the decisionmaker for most of the managers Ellis identifies. For some of his other purported comparators, Ellis failed to offer any admissible evidence that they were involved in romantic relationships with UPS employees at all. Instead, he relied on his former coworkers’ conjecture and speculation that these illicit relationships occurred. One coworker testified at her deposition that she believed a manager was having an affair because she heard “rumors” about the purported relationship from “lots” of people. But rumor and conjecture are not enough to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether these relationships happened, much less as to whether Walker knew about them and treated the managers more favorably.
See Market v. Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Wis. Sys.,
That leaves four couples for which Ellis has offered evidence that a romantic relationship occurred and that Walker supervised. For one of these, however, Ellis offered no evidence that Walker knew about the relationship. If Walker did not know that a particular manager was violating the nonfraternization policy, he could not have enforced the policy and disciplined the offending manager.
See, e.g., Brown v. Ill. Dep’t of Natural Res.,
Regarding the two remaining couples, there is no evidence that Walker treated the managers who were violating the non-fraternization policy more favorably than he treated Ellis. First, Ellis presented evidence that manager Ann McKinley and hourly employee Jay Walls, who are both white, were involved in a romantic relationship and that Walker learned of the relationship in September 2005. But the evidence also showed that Walker met with McKinley and she promised she would end the relationship. Just as he did with Ellis, Walker believed McKinley when she told him that she would comply with the policy. Ellis put forward no evidence that McKinley continued the relationship after she told Walker she would end it. By contrast, after his meeting with Walker in 2004, Ellis persisted in violating the policy when he continued his romantic involvement with Greathouse. So, Ellis is not similarly situated with McKinley.
Ellis’s last potential comparator, Angela Thompson, married hourly employee Andrew Loesch in 2002 (both Thompson and Loesch are white), and both still worked at UPS when Walker arrived in 2003, but Ellis offered no evidence that Thompson was treated more favorably. In 2004 Walker learned that Thompson and Loesch were married. He met with Thompon, explained that she was in violation of the nonfraternization policy, and told her that either she or Loesch had to resign. When Thompson said that neither would resign, Walker fired her. Ellis argues that Thompson was treated more favorably because Walker offered her the choice that either she or Loesch could resign. Ellis contends that, if Walker had given him this choice, Greathouse would have resigned. Walker testified that he gave Ellis this option at the meeting in 2004. Ellis disputes this, but he must have known that Greathouse’s resignation could bring him into compliance with the policy because he testified that he and Greathouse discussed whether she should resign. In any event, this argument misses the point. Walker told both Thompson and Ellis that they were violating the policy and gave them both one opportunity to remedy the problem. Both refused, and both were fired. There is no evidence that Thompson was treated more favorably.
Ellis’s failure to establish that any other similarly situated manager in an intraracial relationship was treated more favorably dooms his discrimination claim.
See Gates v. Caterpillar, Inc.,
Ellis argues that UPS cannot rely on his relationship with Greathouse as a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for firing him because, he insists, UPS does not
*829
have a uniform nonfraternization policy. The nonfraternization policy is discussed in various UPS human resources materials including the UPS Policy Book, memoran-da from Human Resources, and a UPS Web site. Ellis points out that some versions of the policy say that UPS “discourages” romantic relationships between managers and hourly employees, whereas others say that managers should “strictly avoid” such relationships. He argues that the different explanations establish that UPS does not have a consistent policy. To the contrary, although the policy may be expressed differently in various internal UPS documents, supervisors testified at their depositions that they understood the policy prohibited managers from dating hourly workers. Furthermore, Walker enforced the policy consistently among all managers. And even if Ellis thought that the policy only “discouraged,” but did not forbid, him from dating Greathouse, Walker dispelled this interpretation in 2004 when Walker told him that the relationship violated the policy. Ellis also argues that Walker should have adopted the most lenient interpretation possible, but nothing required Walker to do that. And even if Walker had adopted an interpretation of the policy that was too strict, evidence that an employer is too hard on an employee or makes a poorly reasoned or mistaken decision cannot establish pretext.
See Gates,
Ellis next argues that the district court should not have granted summary judgment because this is one of those “rare cases” where there is direct evidence of the employer’s discriminatory intent. As direct evidence that he was fired because he is involved in an interracial relationship, Ellis points to comments Baker made that “there are plenty of good sisters out there” and that Ellis was a “sell-out” and Craft’s purported remark that by “dating a white girl from the phone center” Ellis was “messing up his career.” Derogatory remarks based on an employee’s race can be direct evidence of discrimination if they are made by the decision-maker (or by a person who influences the decisionmaker), near the time of the decision to fire the employee, and in relation to the employee’s discharge.
See Hemsworth v. Quotesmith.com, Inc.,
Finally, Ellis argues that he presented enough evidence to survive summary judgment, under the indirect method of proof, on his claim that UPS discriminated against him because he is an African-American. But for the reasons we have already discussed, we conclude that he did not. Some of this “evidence” was little more than workplace rumors; some of it failed to show that the decisionmaker had critical knowledge; and some of it fell short of rebutting UPS’s facially nondiscriminatory concern about Ellis’s lack of *830 candor with the company. UPS was therefore entitled to summary judgment on this part of the case also.
In closing, we emphasize that our decision today should not be construed as an endorsement of the UPS nonfraternization policy. When a company like UPS runs expensive ads that ask “What can Brown do for you?” it might be wise for it to ask if this policy is really worth all of the fuss this ease has created. As we observed in
Hennessy v. Penril Datacomm Networks, Inc.,
As the work force grows and people spend more of their time at work, the workplace inevitably becomes fertile ground for the dating and mating game. It is certainly not unusual, and it may even be desirable, for love to bloom in the workplace. Contiguity can lead to sexual interest, which can lead to soft music, candlelight dinners, serious romance, and marriage, or any stops along the way.
By all accounts, Ellis was a good employee. He started with UPS as a driver right out of high school in 1979 and worked his way up to a managerial position. After 21 years with the company, he met a woman, apparently fell in love, and, after a 4-year relationship, got engaged. A year later he got married. That’s a fairly nice story, and so is the fact that Ellis and his wife were smooching at a summer concert several months after their wedding. Heck, some marriages today don’t even last that long. Although UPS, for the reasons we have stated, comes out on top in this case, love and marriage are the losers. Something just doesn’t seem quite right about that.
The judgment of the district court is Affirmed.
Notes
. A debate is occurring about the appropriateness and accuracy of terms such as "African-American” and "Black,” commonly used to describe a person’s race. See, e.g., Rachel L. Swarns, ‘African-American’ Becomes a Term for Debate, N.Y. Times (Aug. 29, 2004), available at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/ national/29african.html. Because Ellis identifies himself as an African-American, we will do the same.