Plaintiff Mack Davis appeals the district court’s grant of Defendant Town of Lake Park’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on his Title VII race discrimination claim. Davis, an African-American police officer in the Town, alleges that he suffered adverse employment action based on race in the form of two corrective job performance memos placed in his personnel file and two instances where he was temporarily removed as the designated officer-in-charge (“OIC”). The jury returned a verdict for Davis and awarded $1.00 in nominal damages. The district court, however, set aside the verdict and granted the Town’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, concluding that no reasonable jury could have found adverse *1235 employment action on this record. Because we agree that Davis failed to prove the kind of serious, material change to the terms, conditions, or privileges of his employment required to obtain relief under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause, we affirm.
I.
Davis is the only black police officer in Lake Park, a small community near West Palm Beach, Florida. The department has approximately 20 road patrol officers, plus three sergeants, two lieutenants, and a chief (Jeffrey Lindskoog). The district court’s opinion amply sets out the Town’s extensive efforts to bring Davis into the police force. Davis was hired in November 1992, and remains a police officer there. His performance reviews have been excellent or no worse than satisfactory, and his supervisors have recommended him for several awards. He has served many times as one of the department’s F'ield Training Officers (“FTOs”), responsible for teaching new officers the rules and regulations of the department.
In or about January 1996 Davis was selected by his then-shift sergeant, Patricia Gordon, to serve as OIC in her absence. The OIC is the road patrol officer who fills in for the shift sergeant when that sergeant has a day off, takes a vacation, or otherwise is unavailable. The OIC, when acting in that capacity, is to be accorded the same deference and respect as the sergeant. The OIC designation carries no additional pay or benefits, and is only temporary. It usually, although not always, goes to the most senior officer on the shift.
On October 31, 1996, Davis received a memorandum from Lieutenant Jules Bar-one entitled “Failure to Follow Department Requirements (S.O.P.).” The memo discussed Davis’s alleged failure to comply with certain departmental requirements regarding “turning in paperwork on time and keeping your mailbox clean.” It continued:
What makes this situation even more unacceptable is your position as a field training officer. How can you possibly expect trainees under your direction to follow instructions when you ignore a very basic aspect of your job. I expect more from you. As a result, any future leave requests will not be granted until all work-related paper work is turned in or you receive a waiver from your supervisor or me.
Davis did not suffer any repercussions from that memo; indeed, a week later, he received a performance evaluation — prepared by Gordon, and approved by Barone and Chief Lindskoog — of excellent, and an attendant pay raise.
On December 13,' 1996, Gordon elected to designate another officer, Larry Wood, to serve as OIC while she was away on vacation. Gordon testified that she had noticed a “slump” in Davis’s performance, and that she felt Davis needed a break from the additional duties imposed by being both OIC and an FTO. Gordon later re-designated Davis to serve as OIC. On January 24, 1997, Davis was again replaced as the designated OIC, this time (according to Davis) based on a decision by Barone that Davis’s recent performance was deficient. Gordon concurred in Bar-one’s decision, and designated an officer named Crowell to be OIC instead. Nevertheless, since that time, Davis has served as OIC on various occasions, including at the time of trial.
Meanwhile, on February 5, 1997, Davis received another job performance memo from Barone. The initial version of that memo was quite harsh in its criticism of Davis’s recent performance, and identified several specific instances of unacceptable conduct. The memo was placed in Davis’s *1236 personnel file, prompting Davis to file a union grievance. In response, the department substituted a somewhat softer, revised version of this memo, which stated that Davis’s level of performance was “unacceptable for any officer, let alone one who is a field training officer and has served as an OIC.” The memo added that it was meant to serve “as a warning that performance of a like nature may result in other department actions.” The revised version replaced the initial version in Davis’s personnel file, and was put there with the proviso that it would be removed on February 8, 1998, if the performance problems did not reoccur. The union, notably, did not pursue the matter further. Although the personnel file produced during discovery still contained the revised memo, in July 1999 Chief Lindskoog testified at trial — without contradiction — that the memo had been removed by that time.
II.
’ It is undisputed that Davis did not suffer any reduction in salary, loss of benefits, denial of promotions, workplace reassignment, transfer, or change in permanent job title as a result of these incidents. Nevertheless, on May 14, 1998, Davis filed suit against his employer in the Southern District of Florida, alleging race discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-l, et seq., the Florida Civil Rights Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The case was originally assigned to U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who denied the Town’s motion for summary judgment. In so doing, Judge Moreno rejected the argument that Davis did not suffer adverse employment action. The case was subsequently reassigned to U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks.
A jury trial was held on July 26-28, 1999. At trial the Town moved for judgment as a matter of law at the close of Davis’s case as well as after the close of the evidence. On both occasions the district court reserved ruling. On July 28, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Davis, but awarded him only $1.00 in nominal damages. Before rendering its verdict the jury had submitted to the district judge a note stating: “[W]e appear to be deadlocked. Can you assist? What do we do next?” The district judge responded by ordering the jury to deliberate further.
In a lengthy order dated December 22, 1999, the district court granted the Town’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and thereby set aside the jury’s verdict. After a detailed discussion of the evolution of the adverse employment action requirement in Title VII cases, the court concluded that the incidents complained of by Davis did not, viewed individually or collectively, amount to adverse action. The district court emphasized that Davis did not suffer any discipline for these incidents, did not lose any pay or benefits, and continued to receive excellent or satisfactory performance reviews with attendant increases in salary. With respect to the February 5, 1997, job performance memo, the court particularly emphasized that the memo was not a formal reprimand, and that according to Chief Lindskoog it had already been removed from Davis’s personnel file. In any event, the court wrote, “[mjemoranda of reprimand or counseling that amount to no more than a mere scolding, without any following disciplinary action, do not rise to the level of adverse employment actions sufficient to satisfy the requirements of Title VII.” With respect to the brief removals from the OIC designation, the district court wrote that “courts have uniformly held that changes in assignments or work-related duties do not amount to actionable adverse employment action if unaccompanied by a decrease in salary.” Finally, as an additional ground for entering judgment in the Town’s favor, the court *1237 concluded that Davis had failed to prove that he was treated differently than any similarly-situated white employees, and thus failed on that ground as well to establish a prima facie case under Title VII. This appeal followed. 1
III.
The standard of review is well-settled. As set forth in
Tidwell v. Carter Products,
A district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law is reviewed de novo, entailing the application of the same standards used by the district court. Dade County v. Alvarez,124 F.3d 1380 , 1383 (11th Cir.1997). Those standards require the consideration of “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,477 U.S. 242 , 251-52,106 S.Ct. 2505 , 2512,91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). All evidence and inferences are considered in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Carter v. City, of Miami,870 F.2d 578 , 581 (11th Cir.1989).
If the facts and inferences point overwhelmingly in favor of one party, such that reasonable people could not arrive at a contrary verdict, then the motion was properly granted. Conversely, if there is substantial evidence opposed to the motion such that reasonable people, in the exercise of impartial judgment, might reach differing conclusions, then such a motion was due to be denied and the case was properly submitted to the jury.
Id. (footnotes omitted). The nonmoving party must provide more than a mere scintilla of evidence to survive a motion for judgment as a matter of law; “there must be a substantial conflict in evidence to support a jury question.” Id. Accordingly, we must determine whether reasonable jurors could have concluded as this jury did based on the presented evidence. Quick v. Peoples Bank,993 F.2d 793 , 797 (11th Cir.1993).
Id. at 1425. We review the district court’s entry of judgment as a matter of law against these familiar standards.
IV.
The primary issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred by finding that the alleged adverse employment actions, viewed individually or collectively, were insufficient as a matter of law to support relief under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause. Davis argues that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to him, a reasonable jury could have found that the incidents he suffered (the two memos regarding his inadequate performance and the two removals from the OIC designation) constituted adverse employment action sufficient to support relief under Title VII. He contends that *1238 the memos are tantamount to reprimands, which he asserts are always deemed actionable under Title VII. Moreover, he contends, the presence of the revised memo in his personnel file jeopardizes his career prospects as a police officer. With respect to the OIC designation, Davis contends that the two occasions on which he was removed constituted “demotions,” and in any event are actionable because they deprived him of supervisory experience that could have yielded future benefits. The Town disputes all of these propositions, and repeatedly emphasizes that at no point did Davis suffer any formal discipline or economic injury.
The relevant provision of Title VII prohibits discrimination with respect to an employee’s “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a). Courts have uniformly read this language to require a plaintiff suing under § 2000e-2(a) to establish, as part of his prima facie case, that he suffered so-called “adverse employment action.”
See Merriweather v. Alabama Dept. of Pub. Safety,
We have never adopted a bright-line test for what kind of effect on the plaintiffs “terms, conditions, or privileges” of employment the alleged discrimination must have for it
to
be actionable; nor would such a rigid test be proper.
See, e.g., Gupta,
Courts have used different words to define the “threshold level of substantiality” required by Title VII.
Wideman,
Every Federal Comb of Appeals to have considered the question has found vicarious liability when a discriminatory act results in a tangible employment action - The concept of a tangible employment action appears in numerous cases in the Courts of Appeals discussing claims involving race, age, and national origin discrimination, as well as sex discrimination. Without endorsing the specific results of those decisions, we think it prudent to import the concept of a tangible employment action for resolution of the vicarious liability issue we consider here. A tangible employment action constitutes a significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits.
As applied, these standards are essentially interchangeable: Whatever the benchmark, it is clear that to support-a claim under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause the employer's action must impact the “terms, conditions, or privileges” of the plaintiffs job in a real and demonstrable way. Although the statute does not require proof of direct economic consequences in all eases, the asserted impact cannot be speculative and must at least have a tangible adverse effect on the plaintiffs employment. We therefore hold that, to. prove adverse employment action in a case under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause, an employee must show a
serious and material
change in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. Moreover, the employee’s subjective view of the significance and adversity of the employer’s action is not controlling; the employment action must be materially adverse as viewed by a reasonable person in the circumstances.
See Doe,
Davis’s claim is predicated on two kinds of employer acts that frequently are alleged as adverse employment action even though they do not often meet the statutory threshold. First, Davis relies upon the negative job performance memoranda placed in his file. Neither of the memos at issue caused him any present or foreseeable future economic injury; he maintains, however, that these memoranda were unwarranted, diminished his prestige and self-esteem, and potentially may interfere with (unspecified and unexplored) future job prospects. Second, Davis relies upon the changes in his work assignments— specifically, his two “demotions” from the OIC designation. Again, neither incident caused any economic injury; regardless, says Davis, it is enough that they diminished his prestige and deprived him of experience which might make him more likely to obtain (as yet unsought) promotions in the future. As we discuss, Congress simply did not intend for Title VII to be implicated where so comparatively little is at stake.
A.
We do not view either of the job performance memoranda as constituting adverse employment action. The October 31, 1996, memo, as noted above, was not a formal reprimand under the terms of the Town’s “progressive discipline” structure, but rather was a “counseling memorandum” expressing concern and criticism by Barone over one aspect of Davis’s recent performance. Although the memo described the improper conduct (failing to turn in certain documents) as “unacceptable” and accused Davis of “ignoring] a very basic aspect of your job,” the memo concluded simply by saying that “any future leave requests will not be granted until all work-related paper work is turned in or you receive a waiver from your supervisor or me.” It is undisputed that Davis did not suffer any tangible consequence from this memo, in the form of a loss of pay or benefits or further discipline. Indeed, shortly after this memo, Davis received his annual evaluation with an overall rating of “excellent” and thereby received a contractually-mandated salary increase, further suggesting that the memo did not have a material impact on the terms and conditions of his employment. Viewed in isolation, the October 31 memo is not actionable under Title VII.
The later job performance memo (issued February 5, 1997, and revised thereafter) is likewise not actionable. Although this memo was sterner than its predecessor, it is still not alleged to be a reprimand under the Town’s discipline scheme, and again, Davis did not suffer any loss of pay or benefits, or even a negative annual performance evaluation, as a result of it. The revised memo described several episodes that Barone considered “unacceptable” and warned that “performance of a like nature may result in other departmental actions,” but categorized these events as only a “cause[] for concern” that could be resolved with improved performance in the future.
*1241 Davis’s primary objection is that this revised memo was retained in his personnel file, and thus could jeopardize his chances of obtaining a different position in the future within the Town or elsewhere. As Davis sees it, a police officer’s personnel file is especially important as a record of the officer’s performance and a resource upon which potential future employers will judge him. His view was substantiated by the trial testimony of several witnesses.
There are several difficulties with this argument. First, courts are wisely reluctant to treat job performance memoranda as actionable under Title VII where they do not trigger any more tangible form of adverse action such as a loss in benefits, ineligibility for promotional opportunities, or more formal discipline. In Merriweather, for example, we affirmed the district court’s finding that a written counseling statement that did not constitute a reprimand was not actionable in a Title VII retaliation claim. The district court’s analysis of the issue is pertinent here:
Merriweather complains that she received a written counseling statement on November 6, 1996 for conduct she did not commit in retaliation for [protected conduct]. Defendants contest whether such counseling rose to the level of adverse employment action and whether Merriweather can establish a causal connection between her exercise of protected speech and the counseling....
In the present case, Defendants appeal1 to contend that the written counseling did not amount to even a non-threatening written reprimand. Defendants contend that a warning or counseling is the lowest grade of discipline in the State system, does not subtract points from an employee’s evaluation, does not affect an employee’s salary, and is not punitive. Merriweather has not alleged that this imitten counseling has had any adverse impact on her employment. She has not produced any evidence to support that she has been fired, demoted or denied any pay increase because of the counseling. Nor have any of the terns of her employment been adversely affected because of the counseling. This court therefore finds that the written counseling does not constitute adverse employment action, and that Merri-weather has failed to state a prima facie case of retaliation based upon the written counseling.
Other courts have taken a similar approach, finding that criticisms of an employee’s job performance — written or oral — that do not lead to tangible job consequences will rarely form a permissible predicate for a Title VII suit.
See, e.g., Allen,
Given that Congress in § 2000e-2(a) has expressly limited the types of employer actions which may give rise to a Title VII discrimination claim, such a claim rarely may be predicated merely on employer’s allegedly unfounded criticism of an employee’s job performance, where that criticism has no tangible impact on the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. An employee who receives criticism or a negative evaluation may lose self-esteem and conceivably may suffer a loss of prestige in the eyes of others who come to be aware of the evaluation. But the protections of Title VII simply do not extend to “ ‘everything that makes an employee unhappy.’ ”
Robinson,
Employer criticism, like employer praise, is an ordinary and appropriate feature of the workplace. Expanding the scope of Title VII to permit discrimination lawsuits predicated only on unwelcome day-to-day critiques and assertedly unjustified negative evaluations would threaten the flow of communication between employees and supervisors and limit an employer’s ability to maintain and improve job performance. Federal courts ought not be put in the position of monitoring and second-guessing the feedback that an employer gives, and should be encouraged to give, an employee. Simply put, the loss of prestige or self-esteem felt by an employee who receives what he believes to be unwarranted job criticism or performance review will rarely — without more — establish the adverse action necessary to pursue a claim under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause. 4
Second, to the extent Davis’s concern is that the revised memo became part of his personnel file, the undisputed evidence at trial established that the memo has now been removed. The memo may not have been removed by the promised date (Feb *1243 ruary 5, 1998), but Chief Lindskoog testified without contradiction at trial in July 1998 that it had been removed by that point. We are not aware of any record evidence establishing that the inclusion of the memo in Davis’s personnel file between February 1997 and no later than July 1999 affected his job prospects within or beyond the Town in any way. 5 There is no testimony, for example, suggesting that Davis was denied a promotion in the Town or passed over for a job elsewhere due to the presence of that memo in his file. Nor is there any evidence that the contents of the memo (or the October 31 memo, for that matter) were disclosed to other officers. Accordingly, Davis cannot show any tangible consequences from the memo.
In any event, this kind of allegation— that the employer’s criticism or negative evaluation may affect the employee’s prospects — does little to advance Davis’s claim even if true. Any job criticism or negative job review carries with it the possibility that the employee’s future prospects may be prejudiced if that information is disclosed. A negative evaluation that otherwise would not be actionable will rarely, if ever, become actionable merely because the employee comes forward with evidence that his future prospects have been or will be hindered as a result.
B.
The other adverse actions alleged by Davis concern the two instances when he was briefly “removed” as the designated Officer-in-Charge. Davis attempts to cast these incidents as tantamount to a demotion, which clearly may be actionable under Title VII, by characterizing his appointments as OIC as a promotion. Alternatively, Davis alleges that these incidents altered his work assignments, a step which some courts have said may constitute adverse employment action if the change in job responsibilities is substantial.
Viewing the OIC designation as a promotion, so that even a brief removal from that designation constitutes a demotion actionable under Title VII, is not persuasive. 6 The OIC designation is, by definition, ephemeral: an officer is not permanently named the OIC for any given shift, but rather that determination is made on a case-by-case basis by the relevant supervisory officials. Davis contends that all at-will employment positions may be viewed as temporary in the sense that the employee may be removed from the position at any time, and that accordingly emphasizing the temporary nature of the OIC designation is misleading. But the *1244 OIC designation, unlike an ordinary at-will job, exists solely as a stop-gap measure to ensure that certain duties are fulfilled in the event the officer normally responsible for those duties becomes unavailable. Moreover, being designated OIC does not bring with it any increase in salary or benefits, or unique opportunities for advancement within the department. Finally, if we accept that the OIC designation is usually given as a matter of course to the most senior road patrol officer on a given shift, then it is even more difficult to view that designation as the same kind of recognition of achievement that a promotion typically implies.
Equally unpersuasive is Davis’s argument that the two occasions when he was removed as OIC constituted a material change in his regular work assignments. As noted above, OIC is an ephemeral designation; it was not presented to Davis as • becoming, and did not become, a permanent feature of his job responsibilities as an employee of the Town. Nor is it clear that actual additional responsibilities of serving as OIC were substantial, at least during the periods that Davis served in that capacity; after all, a person assumed OIC duties only on a part-time basis when the sergeant or other more senior shift supervisor was absent, and even then it is not established on this record that a great deal of additional work or responsibility was involved.
Cf. Allen,
Furthermore, even assuming that there is some prestige attached to being designated as OIC, any loss of prestige suffered by Davis on these two occasions must be weighed against the fact that he served as OIC on subsequent occasions after each instance when he was removed.
Cf. Yates v. Avco Corp.,
A contrary view would potentially open the door to a wide variety of unfair work assignment claims that should not be litigated in the federal courts. Title VII is not designed to make federal courts “ ‘sit as a super-personnel department that reexamines an entity’s business decisions.’ ”
Elrod v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.,
For these reasons, applying the adverse action requirement carefully is especially important when the plaintiffs claim is predicated on his disagreement with his employer’s reassignment of job tasks. Courts elsewhere have been reluctant to hold that changes in job duties amount to adverse employment action when unaccompanied by any tangible harm.
See, e.g., Mungin v. Katten Muchin & Zavis,
We do not suggest that a change in work assignments can never by itself give rise to a Title VII claim; in unusual instances the change may be so substantial and material that it does indeed alter the “terms, conditions, or privileges” of employment.
Cf. McNely v. Ocala Star-Banner Corp.,
To the extent Davis’s removal as OIC on these two occasions deprived him of valuable experience that might have given rise to more lucrative opportunities within the department or elsewhere, Davis acquired that experience by serving as OIC on previous and subsequent occasions. In any event, this claim of harm is made only at the highest order of abstraction; there is no evidence that Davis sought, let alone was denied any opportunity due to his removal as OIC on the two occasions at issue. The OIC incidents plainly do not establish adverse employment action.
C.
Davis also contends that even if none of the particular incidents about which he complains (the two memos and the two instances when he was removed as OIC) amounts to adverse employment action when viewed in isolation, viewed as a whole these incidents do support a Title VII discrimination claim. We disagree.
Davis’s argument relies almost entirely upon our opinion in
Wideman,
which discussed adverse employment action in the context of a Title VII retaliation claim. There, we stated that it was “enough to conclude, as we do, that the actions about which Wideman complains considered collectively are sufficient to constitute prohibited discrimination. We need not and do not decide whether anything less than the totality of the alleged reprisals would be sufficient.”
The facts of Wideman are altogether different than those present here. In Wideman, the employee not only received two formal written reprimands, she also was suspended, threatened, and her health was put in jeopardy. Id. at 1455. Although Wideman did not purport to answer the question, at least one of these sanctions (the suspension) presumably would be actionable standing alone under our precedent. In this case, by contrast, Davis was not suspended, was not given a formal reprimand, and suffered little if any of the verbal harassment apparently suffered by the plaintiff in Wideman. Viewed individually or collectively, the adverse action alleged by Davis is highly insubstantial in comparison to the misconduct alleged in Wideman.
In the end, no reasonable jury could view the relatively minor incidents suffered by Davis as the kind of adverse employment action that Title VII was in *1246 tended to redress. The fact that the jury-awarded Davis only nominal damages is a telling indication that the Town’s alleged misconduct did not impact Davis in any material way. We do not diminish the seriousness of Davis’s allegations of race-motivated conduct (allegations which the jury apparently credited in a verdict that the Town, notably, does not contest on that basis). But while Congress certainly could have extended the protection of Title VII to all aspects of the employment relationship, it plainly did not so, and instead contemplated relief under the statute’s anti-discrimination clause only to employees injured in the “terms, conditions, or privileges” of their employment. The injuries alleged by Davis — loss of prestige and potential future opportunities associated with two negative job performance memo-randa and the denial on two brief occasions of a favorable work assignment — do not meet the threshold set by Congress.
Because adverse employment action is an indispensable element of a Title yil plaintiffs case, Davis’s failure to present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that this element was met is fatal to his case.
See Turlington v. Atlanta Gas Light Co.,
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Davis argues that Lhe law of the case doctrine required Judge Middlebrooks to adhere to Judge Moreno's earlier ruling at the summary judgment stage that the issues of adverse employment action and prima facie case were questions of fact for the jury. Davis’s argument is plainly incorrect. Law of the case does not apply in this situation because Judge Middlebrooks based his post-trial order on a different record than did Judge Moreno when addressing summary judgment.
See United States v. Williams,
. Davis cites several times to broad language from a former Fifth Circuit decision,
Rogers v. EEOC,
. Likewise, in
Graham v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co.,
. Davis cites dicta in Doe, an ADA case, to assert that a loss of prestige is by itself sufficient to state a claim. Doe does not hold that an asserted loss of prestige can transform employer conduct which does not alter the "terms, conditions, or privileges” of the plaintiff's employment into a proper basis for suit under Title VII’s anti-discrimination clause. Indeed, discussing the job transfer at issue in that case, we stressed that "it is not enough that a transfer imposes some de minimis inconvenience or alteration of responsibilities.” Id. at 1453.
. Davis contends, without dispute, that by law this document cannot be destroyed, and remains theoretically accessible to potential future employers and members of the public under Florida’s public records laws. The significance of that information is unclear, however. If indeed the document has been eliminated from Davis's personnel records, we cannot conceive (and have not been told by the parties) how that document might nevertheless someday be circulated to potential future employers. In any event, the important point here is that Davis has made no showing on this record that the memos at issue had any effect, let alone tangible effect, on him beyond assertedly diminishing his prestige and self-esteem. Moreover, the fact that the allegedly unjustified evaluations are written as opposed to oral, and hence recorded in more permanent fashion, does not change this fundamental defect in Davis's argument.
. The OIC designation is not deemed a promotion under the Town's code or personnel policies. Davis makes much of the fact that in its summary judgment papers to the district court the Town’s attorneys referred to the process by which a road patrol officer is "promoted” to OIC. The Town has since retreated from that presumably inadvertent description, and we do not attach great importance to it, especially as it was made in the context of the Town arguing that the removals from the OIC designation cannot be deemed adverse employment actions.
. Because we find that Davis failed to prove adverse employment action, his Title VII claim fails on that basis alone, and we do not reach the Town’s alternative argurnenL that Davis was required to show, but did not show, that similarly-situated white employees were treated differently than he was.