Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge LUTTIG wrote the opinion, in which Senior Judge HAMILTON and Judge DEVER joined.
Plaintiff-appellant Kimberly Miles, a former account manager at Dell, Inc., sued Dell for sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and retaliation under Title VII. The district court granted Dell’s motion for summary judgment as to all three claims, concluding that, under governing circuit precedent, Miles failed to make out a prima facie case of sex or pregnancy discrimination because she was replaced by another female, and that Miles failed to exhaust her administrative remedies with respect to her retaliation claim because shе did not allege retaliation in the charge she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Because the district court did not consider whether Miles’ case falls within the different-decisionmaker exception to the fourth prong of the Title VII prima facie case that we recognize today, we vacate the grant of summary judgment with respect to Miles’ sex and pregnancy discrimination claims. We affirm the grant of summary judgment with respect to Miles’ retaliation claim.
I.
From January 1999 to June 2002, plaintiff-appellant Kimberly Miles worked as an account manager for defendant-appellee Dell, Inc. 1 J.A. 45, 240. From March 2001 until her dismissal, Miles’ supervisor was James Glaze, a regional sаles manager who oversaw Miles’ sales team. Id. at 418, 439. On March 21, 2001, Miles informed Glaze that she was pregnant. Id. at 430.
In April 2001, Glaze reduced Miles’ sales territory and reassigned her key accounts in Northern Virginia, where she lived, to another employee who had no prior sales experience and lived in Texas. Id. at 422. Miles asked Glaze if he had reassigned her territory because of her pregnancy, but he would not discuss the matter with her. Id. at 425. Miles complained to one of Glaze’s superiors about her mistreatment and told Glaze that she had done so. Id.
In May 2001, Glaze increased Miles’ individual sales quotas and told her that she would remain responsible for achieving those quotas during any maternity lеave she might take. Id. at 431, 442-43. Glaze also reported (falsely, Miles says) to Dell’s human resources officer that Miles had lied to him about the status of a contract *484 with one of Dell’s customers. Id. at 326. Glaze requested permission to terminate Miles, but that request was refused. Id. On June 30, 2001, Miles gave birth to her daughter. Id. at 427. After taking two weeks of maternity leave, Miles returned to work. Id. at 169. Nine months later, on March 28, 2002, Glaze gave Miles an unsatisfactory rating for her performance in 2001 and shortly thereafter placed her on a performance-improvement plan (“PIP”). Id. at 200-06, 207-09. Miles again informed Glaze that she intended to complain to his supervisor about her mistreatment, and she did so. Id. at 425-26. Miles told Glaze’s supervisor that Glaze had been hostile towards her frоm the time she told him she was pregnant. Id.
On May 1, 2002, Glaze forwarded an email from one of Miles’ disgruntled clients to Dell management, along with a request that Miles be terminated. Id. at 214. Shortly thereafter, a member of Dell’s human resources department contacted Glaze, advised him that she agreed that termination was the right decision, and instructed him to draft a termination letter. Id. at 148-49. Miles claims that the disgruntled customer whose e-mail Glaze forwarded was one that she had brought to his attention, and that Glaze had assured her she was handling the situation appropriately and refused her request that he assign extra help to that account. Id. at 251.
On June 24, 2002, while she was on her way to the airport for a businеss trip, Miles received a call from Glaze, who told her to meet him at the airport Hilton to discuss her PIP. Id. at 240. When they met, Glaze handed Miles her termination letter, demanded that she surrender her company cell phone and laptop, and, according to Miles, said: “So, what do you think of me now?” Id. Miles alleges that throughout the time she worked under Glaze, she met Dell’s legitimate expectations and indeed that she outperformed her male colleagues, who were not placed on PIPs or fired. Id. at 234. She claims that the reasons for her dismissal stated in her termination letter were inaccurate, inflated, or false, and that Glaze had told her all along that she was doing finе, while in fact he was setting her up for failure. Id. at 241-42.
In August 2002, Dell offered Miles’ position to Susan Patrick. Id. at 366. Miles claims that Glaze first tried to fill her position with a male, Michael McGill, but was vetoed by his superiors, who insisted on hiring another female account manager. Id. at 289-90. Melissa Phillips, an account executive under Glaze, submitted an affidavit in which she testified:
After [Glaze] fired [Miles] in June, 2002, I talked with him several times about his plans for hiring a new account manager for the Navy sales team. [Glaze] told me, and others in my presence, that he wanted to hire Mike McGill, a member of Dell’s support staff. [Glaze] said he was pushing hard to get Mike hired, and hoped and expected that he would get approvаl to do so.... In August, 2002 ... [Glaze] told me that Mike had not been approved for the account manager position. [Glaze] also told me that [Glaze’s boss] had insisted that [Glaze] hire Susan Patrick because they needed another female account manager. [Glaze] expressed disappointment and frustration to me about having to hire Susan, and told me he had no choice in the matter.
Id.
On November 13, 2002, Miles filed a charge with the EEOC. Id. at 228-29. On her charge form, she checked the box for sex discrimination, but not the box for retaliation. Id. In her narrative explaining her charge, Miles stated that Glaze had *485 been hostile to her after finding out she was pregnant, that she complained of Glaze’s hostile attitude to Glaze’s supervisor, and that, after firing her, Glaze refused to answer her questions about why she was fired, but answered only, “So, what do you think of me now?” Id. On April 16, 2003, Miles’ attorney sent a letter to the EEOC that explicitly alleged retaliation. Id. at 483-86. That letter was not served on Dell.
On November 21, 2003, Miles filed a complaint against Dell in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and retaliation. Id. at 7-14. The district court granted Dell’s motion for summary judgment as to all three claims. Id. at 538. The district court concluded that Miles’ sex and pregnancy discrimination claims failed as a matter of law “because she [did] not state a prima facie case of discrimination since she was replaced by a member of her protected class.” Id. at 533. The district court held that Miles’ retaliation claim failed because she did not exhaust her administrative remedies. Id. at 536-38. We examine each of Miles’ claims in turn.
II.
In
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v.
Green, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he complainant in a Title VII trial must carry the initial burden under the statute of establishing a prima facie case” of discrimination.
We conclude that, in appropriate cases, a Title VII plaintiff can make out a prima facie case without satisfying prong four. Specifically, we hold that, in cases where the plaintiff can show that the firing and replacement hiring decisions were made by different decisionmakers, the plaintiff can make out a prima facie case without showing replacement by someone outside the protected class.
This court’s requirement that Title VII plaintiffs show replacement outside the protected class as part of their prima facie case is not dictated by Supreme Court precedent. The fourth prong of the prima facie case laid out by the Court in
McDonnell Douglas,
a refusal-to-hire case, did not require the plaintiff to show that the individual ultimately hired be outside the plaintiffs protected class.
Nevertheless, in
Brown v. McLean,
we held, relying on
St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks,
It is thus clear that the law in this circuit is that, as a general rule, Title VII plaintiffs must show that they were replaced by someone outside their protectеd class in order to make out a prima facie case. However, we have recognized that “there may be exceptions to this rule in limited situations.”
Brown,
The district court recognized that there may be exceptions to prong four, but concluded that they were limited to the three mentioned in Brown. See J.A. at 534-35. We reject this understanding. Nothing in Brown or in logic suggests that Brown’s list of possible exceptions is exhaustive. Miles urges us to the opposite extreme, asking us to hold that a plaintiff may bypass prong four whenever the totality of her evidencе gives rise to an inference of discrimination. We also reject this position. To adopt Miles’ position would be essentially to read prong four out of the prima facie case, which this panel is not at liberty to do given the clear rule in this circuit that Title VII plaintiffs must ordinarily show replacement outside the protected class. 4
Although we are without the authority to dispense with the fourth prong *488 altogether whenever the plaintiffs evidence could be said to give rise to an inference of discrimination, we do believe, though, that it is permissible for a panel of the court to recognize exceptions to prong four for categories of cases thаt call for an exception. In order to determine whether an exception to the fourth prong is warranted of course, we must consider the purpose of that prong. Although neither Brown nor any other decision of this court of which we are aware provides a justification for prong four, it seems evident to us that a plaintiff must ordinarily show that she was replaced by someone outside her protected class because, when someone within her protected class is hired as a replacement, that fact ordinarily gives rise to an inference that the defendant did not fire the plaintiff because of her protected status. For example, when a female plaintiff is fired and the employer replaces her with another woman, that fact at least tends to show that the employer’s motivation for firing the plaintiff was not her sex, because an employer is unlikely to hire a female replacement if its reason for firing the plaintiff was that she was female. In other words, replacement within the protected class gives rise to an inference of non-discrimination with respect to the protected status. The fourth prong requires plaintiffs, as part of their prima facie case, to eliminate this inference of non-discrimination. 5
However, replacement within the protected class does not аlways give rise to an inference of non-discrimination. One clear example of this is when the defendant hires someone from within the plaintiffs protected class in order “to disguise its act of discrimination toward the plaintiff.”
See Brown,
*489 Suppose an employer evaluates its staff yearly and retains black workers who are in the top quarter of its labor force, but keeps any white in the top half. A black employee ranked in the 60th percentile of the staff according to supervisors’ evaluations is let go, while all white employees similarly situated are retained. This is race discrimination, which the employer cannot purge by hiring another person of the same race later.
Carson v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.,
We believe that another such category of cases is that wherein the firing and replacement hiring decisions are made by different decisionmakers. In such cases, we are convinced that the replacement hiring decision simply does not give rise to an inference of non-discrimination with respect to the firing decision. That is, when one individual makes the decision to fire the plaintiff and another makes the replacement hiring decision, the second individual’s hiring decision has no probative value whatsoever as to whether the first individual’s firing decision was motivated by the plаintiffs .protected status. We accordingly hold that, when a Title VII plaintiff can show that the firing and hiring decisions were made by different decision-makers, she need not show as part of her prima facie case that she was replaced by someone outside her protected class.
The record before us suggests that such may have been the case here. Miles’ evidence suggests that Glaze was principally responsible for firing her, but that his superiors made the decision to hire Susan Patrick, overruling his preference to hire a male. However, the record has not been sufficiently developed with respect to this issue. We accordingly vacate the distriсt court’s grant of summary judgment as to Miles’ sex and pregnancy discrimination claims and remand this case to the district court for a determination whether Miles has established a genuine issue of material fact .as to whether the decision to fire her was made by a decisionmaker different from the one that hired Susan Patrick.
See Lockheed Martin,
III.
The district court granted Dell’s motion for summary judgment as to Miles’ pregnancy discrimination claim for the same reason that it granted the motion with *490 respect to her sex discrimination claim— namely, that Miles had not shown that she was replaced by someone outside her protected class. See J.A. at 535 (“Because Ms. Miles was not replaced by a person outside her protected class ... her sex and pregnancy discrimination claims fail.”). As we have already concluded, Miles is not required to show that she was replaced by someone outside her protected class if she can establish on remand a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the decision to fire her was made by a decisionmaker different from the one that hired Susan Patrick.
Even if Miles cannot make the different-decisionmaker showing on remand and must therefore satisfy the fourth prong of the prima facie case, she has done so with respect to her pregnancy discrimination claim. As even Dell conceded at oral argument, for purposes of establishing a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination, the protected class is pregnant women, not all women.
7
See Gleklen v. Democratic Congressional Campaign Comm., Inc.,
Conceding this point, Dell asserts an alternate ground for affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment in its favor on Miles’ pregnancy discrimination claim. Dell argues that, because Miles was not fired until almost a year after she gave birth, any causal connection between her pregnancy and her termination is so attenuated that her claim must fail as a matter of law. Dell cites us to two Fourth Circuit Title VII retaliation cases in which we have stated that a lengthy time lapse between the employer becoming aware of the protected activity and the alleged adverse employment action negates any inference that a causal сonnection exists between the two.
See Causey v. Balog,
Here, despite the year lapse between Miles’ pregnancy and her termination, we are persuaded, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Miles, that she has introduced sufficient evidence for a rational jury to conclude that there was a causal connection betwеen the two. First, it is uncontested that in May 2001, while Miles was still pregnant, Glaze unsuccessfully tried to get authorization to fire her. A jury could rationally conclude that Glaze wanted to fire Miles because of her pregnancy but was rebuffed in his first attempt and simply bided his time until he could convince management to let him fire her, all the while harboring a discriminatory animus. Second, a rational jury could conclude that Glaze reduced Miles’ sales territory and increased her quotas because she was pregnant and that those actions set her up for the failures that he later used to make the case for her termination to management. If a jury believed either of these scenarios, it could rationally conclude that there was a causal connection between Miles’ pregnancy and her termination. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to hold that the causation element of Miles’ pregnancy discrimination claim— and thus her entire claim — fails as a matter of law because of the lapse of time. Whether Miles’ pregnancy motivated or otherwise resulted in Dell’s decision to fire her is a question properly left to the jury.
IV.
The district court granted Dell’s motion for summary judgment as to Miles’ retaliation claim on the grounds that she failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. J.A. 536-38. “Before a plaintiff has standing to file suit under Title VII, he must exhaust his administrative remedies by filing a charge with the EEOC.”
Bryant v. Bell Atlantic Maryland, Inc.,
The question in this case is thus whether Miles’ claim that she was retaliat *492 ed against for complaining about discriminatory treatment is reasonably related to her EEOC charge such that it would have reasonably been expected to follow from an administrative investigation of that charge. The district court concluded that it is not. We agree. Miles did not check the retaliation box on her charge form, and the narrative explaining her charge made no mention of retaliation. See J.A. 228-29 (“I believe that I was discriminated against due to my sex (femаle) and (pregnancy).”) The EEOC points out that Miles stated in her charge that she had complained to Glaze’s supervisor and that Glaze told her, “So, what do you think of me now?” when he fired her. These facts, the EEOC argues, establish that Miles’ retaliation claim is reasonably related to her sex and pregnancy discrimination claims and would have followed from an investigation of those claims. 9
We are unpersuaded. Although Miles’ narrative states that she complained to Glaze’s supervisor, it does not state that she complained to him
about discrimination. Id.
at 228 (stating only that Miles “discussed the issue of the hostile attitude of Mr. Glaze”). Nor does it state that Glaze was aware that Miles had complained tо his supervisor. And Glaze’s alleged statement to Miles does not necessarily imply that Glaze was motivated by a retaliatory impulse. In short, Miles’ charge does not remotely allege that Glaze retaliated against her because she had complained of his discriminatory conduct to his supervisor, and it does not otherwise allege facts that would have put Dell or the EEOC on notice that she was charging Dell with retaliation. We thus agree with the district court that Miles’ retaliation claim is not reasonably related to her charge such that it would have been expected to follow from an investigation of Miles’ sex and pregnancy discrimination claims.
Cf. Bryant,
Miles claims that, in determining whether she exhausted her administrative remedies, we should consider not only her charge, but also a letter she later sent to the EEOC that explicitly alleged retaliation. That letter, which was sent five months after Miles filed her charge and was not served on Dell, does not cure her failure to allege retaliation in the charge and is insufficient to meet the administrative exhaustion requirement.
See Sloop v. Memorial Mission Hosp., Inc.,
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court as to Miles’ sex and pregnancy discrimination claims is vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. The judgment of the district court as to Miles’ retaliation claim is affirmed.
AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED
Notes
. Because Miles was the non-moving party, we view the facts, and recite them here, in the light most favorable to her.
.
Hicks
does not dictate the result we reached in
Brown.
In
Hicks,
the Supreme Court did note that the defendant had not challenged the district court's finding that the plaintiff, who was black, had made out a prima facie case by showing, among other things, "that the position remained open and was ultimately filled by a white man.”
. See
Cumpiano v. Banco Santander Puerto Rico,
. The EEOC argues that this court has in fact already adopted Miles’ position. It cites
EEOC v. Sears Roebuck & Co.,
in which we noted that "[w]hat is critical with respect to the fourth element is that the plaintiff demonstrate he was not hired (or fired or not promoted, etc.) 'under circumstances which give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination.' ”
. At times by way of shorthand but frequently out of misunderstanding, it is often said that satisfaction of the prima facie case gives rise to an actual inference of discrimination. However, this is incorrect. The prima facie case serves as a screen for cases whose facts give rise to an inference of non-discrimination — screening those cases out — rather than as a test the satisfaction of which affirmatively establishes an actual inference of discrimination. The Supreme Court could not have been any clearer in
Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine:
“The prima facie case serves an important function in the litigation: it eliminates the most common nondiscriminatory reasons for the plaintiff’s rejection.”
In
Burdine,
the Court also explained the distinction between an actual inference of discrimination and the presumptive inference to which the prima facie case gives rise: "As [we] explained in
Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters,
. Dell argues that Miles also failed to make out a prima facie case because she did not establish a genuine issue of material fact as to whether she was meeting its legitimate expectations. We express no view on this matter and leave it to be adjudicated in the first instance by the district court.
. As noted,
supra
note 5, Title VII's prima facie case functions to screen out cases whose facts give rise to an inference of non-discrimination, rather than to establish an actual inference of discrimination.
See Burdine,
. Dell also cites
Hooven-Lewis
v.
Caldera,
. The EEOC’s assertion that Miles’ retaliation claim was one that would reasonably have been expected to follow from its investigation is belied by the fact that the EEOC did not investigate retaliation in response to Miles' charge.