Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Catastrophe Management Solutions ( 2017 )


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  •                Case: 14-13482      Date Filed: 12/05/2017      Page: 1 of 41
    IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
    ________________________
    No. 14-13482
    ________________________
    D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-00476-CB-M
    EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION,
    Plaintiff - Appellant,
    versus
    CATASTROPHE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS,
    Defendant - Appellee.
    ________________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Southern District of Alabama
    ________________________
    Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, TJOFLAT, HULL, MARCUS, WILSON,
    WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JULIE CARNES, and
    JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.*
    *
    Judge Kevin C. Newsom, who joined the Court on August 4, 2017, did not participate in the en
    banc poll that was conducted in this case.
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017   Page: 2 of 41
    BY THE COURT:
    A petition for rehearing having been filed and a member of this Court in
    active service having requested a poll on whether this case should be reheard by
    the Court sitting en banc, and a majority of the judges in active service on this
    Court having voted against granting a rehearing en banc, it is ORDERED that this
    case will not be reheard en banc.
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    JORDAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc:
    Catastrophe Management Solutions does not hire anyone, black or white,
    who uses an “excessive hairstyle[ ],” a category that includes dreadlocks. So when
    Chastity Jones, a black woman, refused to remove her dreadlocks, CMS rescinded
    her employment offer.      The EEOC sued on her behalf, claiming that “[a]
    prohibition of dreadlocks in the workplace constitutes race discrimination because
    dreadlocks are a manner of wearing the hair that is physiologically and culturally
    associated with people of African descent.” D.E. 21-1 at ¶ 28 (EEOC’s proposed
    amended complaint). The EEOC’s lawsuit, in other words, sought to expand the
    definition of “race”—a term undefined in Title VII—to include anything
    purportedly associated with the culture of a protected group.
    The district court dismissed the case, and a panel of this court affirmed
    because the EEOC’s complaint did not allege—as required by our Title VII
    disparate-treatment precedent—that dreadlocks are an immutable characteristic of
    black individuals. See Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n v. Catastrophe
    Mgmt. Sols., 
    852 F.3d 1018
    , 1021, 1028–30 (11th Cir. 2016) (applying Willingham
    v. Macon Tel. Publ’g Co., 
    507 F.2d 1084
     (5th Cir. 1975) (en banc), and Garcia v.
    Gloor, 
    618 F.2d 264
     (5th Cir. 1980)). A majority of this court has declined to
    rehear the case en banc, prompting Judge Martin to dissent from the denial of
    rehearing with a thoughtful critique of the panel opinion.
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    But as insightful as Judge Martin’s dissent is, and as difficult as the issues
    presented are, dismissing the complaint was the correct legal call. Under our
    precedent, banning dreadlocks in the workplace under a race-neutral grooming
    policy—without more—does not constitute intentional race-based discrimination.
    First, dreadlocks are not, according to the EEOC’s proposed amended complaint,
    an immutable characteristic of black individuals. Second, the allegations in the
    complaint do not lend themselves to a reasonable inference that, in applying its
    grooming policy to dreadlocks, CMS discriminated against Ms. Jones because of
    her race.
    *****
    To start, I think Judge Martin overstates what the Supreme Court held in
    Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 
    490 U.S. 228
     (1989). She says that a majority of the
    Court in Price Waterhouse allowed the plaintiff to claim disparate treatment for
    behavior she could have changed. And that, she contends, cannot be squared with
    Willingham and its immutability requirement. Her argument draws exclusively
    from the four-justice plurality opinion, which she says constitutes the holding of
    the case because Justice White and Justice O’Connor, each of whom concurred in
    the judgment, did not dispute the plurality’s rationale. Assuming that is the correct
    reading of the concurring opinions, I believe Price Waterhouse and our decision in
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    Willingham can be reconciled because the Price Waterhouse plurality did not hold
    that Title VII protects mutable characteristics.
    In Price Waterhouse, Ann Hopkins, a woman, sued for sex discrimination
    when she was denied partnership at a well-known accounting firm. Although there
    was evidence that the firm’s partners had disparaged Ms. Hopkins’ demeanor as
    insufficiently feminine, Price Waterhouse seemed to argue on appeal that such
    comments were irrelevant for Title VII purposes. See Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at
    250–51. The plurality rejected that argument, explaining that while stereotyped
    remarks did not “inevitably prove” a disparate-treatment claim, they could
    “certainly be evidence” that the firm “actually relied on [Ms. Hopkins’] gender in
    making its [employment] decision,” in violation of Title VII.        See 
    id. at 251
    (emphasis in original).
    Put differently, the Price Waterhouse plurality made the unremarkable
    observation that, when an employer makes a decision based on a mutable
    characteristic (demeanor) that is linked by stereotype (how women should behave)
    to one of Title VII’s protected categories (a person’s sex), the decision may be
    impermissibly based on the protected category, so the attack on the mutable
    characteristic is legally relevant to the disparate-treatment claim. But a plaintiff
    must still ground her disparate-treatment claim on one of the protected Title VII
    categories, which Willingham tells us are immutable.
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    In my view, Price Waterhouse did not elevate mutable features, independent
    of a protected category, to protected status. See Jespersen v. Harrah’s Operating
    Co., 
    444 F.3d 1104
    , 1111 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (interpreting Price Waterhouse
    as a mixed-motive discrimination case in which the Supreme Court clarified that
    stereotypes can serve as evidence that an employer unlawfully considered sex in
    making an employment decision); Chapman v. AI Transp., 
    229 F.3d 1012
    , 1036
    (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (distinguishing between a mutable trait and an
    “impermissible consideration”—that is, a protected category). And because it did
    not, merely prohibiting a mutable characteristic does not, as Judge Martin and the
    EEOC argue, constitute discrimination.
    Title VII, the Supreme Court has told us, is not “a general civility code for
    the American workplace.” Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 
    548 U.S. 53
    , 68 (2006) (quoting Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 
    523 U.S. 75
    , 80
    (1998)).   It requires courts to determine whether a particular policy is
    discriminatory, but not whether it is ideal or fair. The panel here was not tasked
    with addressing whether CMS’ grooming policy is enlightened, or whether it
    makes sense in our multicultural and evolving society. The panel decided only
    whether the EEOC sufficiently alleged a Title VII disparate-treatment claim under
    Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit precedent.
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    *****
    Judge Martin takes aim at a purported internal consistency in the panel
    opinion, arguing that, if immutability is the rule, the panel provided two different,
    conflicting definitions of the term. The first is that an immutable trait is something
    “beyond the victim’s power to alter,” a phrase the panel quoted from the binding
    Former Fifth Circuit decision in Garcia.         Judge Martin maintains that this
    definition is inconsistent with the panel’s reliance on Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mut.
    Hosp. Ins., Inc., 
    538 F.2d 164
     (7th Cir. 1976) (en banc), which recognized a
    race-discrimination claim for a black plaintiff who alleged she was denied
    promotion for wearing an afro, because both afros and dreadlocks can be altered.
    Given this supposed inconsistency, Judge Martin concludes that the panel actually
    defined immutable as “naturally occurring,” and argues that the complaint
    sufficiently alleged that dreadlocks occur naturally in black individuals’ hair.
    The panel opinion isn’t as confusing as Judge Martin makes it seem. The
    two definitions provided are not at odds because the panel used the phrase “beyond
    the victim’s power to alter” to refer to a trait that a person cannot change
    permanently because it is present from birth.        See THE AMERICAN HERITAGE
    DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 878 (4th ed. 2009) (defining “immutable”
    as “[n]ot subject or susceptible to change”). The opinion, in so many words, made
    this abundantly clear. See, e.g., Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1026–27. This is
    7
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    also what courts after Willingham have understood immutability to mean. See,
    e.g., Earwood v. Cont’l Se. Lines, Inc., 
    539 F.2d 1349
    , 1351 (4th Cir. 1976)
    (following Willingham and explaining that “discrimination based on . . . immutable
    sex characteristics . . . violate[s] [Title VII] because they present obstacles to
    employment of one sex that cannot be overcome”) (emphasis added). Indeed,
    when the Former Fifth Circuit in Garcia employed the phrase, it gave as examples
    a person’s “place of birth” and “the place of birth of his forebears.” See Garcia,
    
    618 F.2d at 269
    .
    Judge Martin’s critique of the panel opinion conflates altering a
    characteristic with masking it. Those two concepts are distinct; if a trait can be
    masked momentarily but will eventually revert to its natural state, it is immutable
    because it is “beyond the [person’s] power to alter.”
    According to Judge Martin, the panel also differentiated between dreadlocks
    and afros based on “its own notion that the only natural black hair is an [a]fro.”
    The panel, however, accepted that an afro was the natural state of Ms. Jenkins’ hair
    because Ms. Jenkins said it was. Ms. Jenkins had alleged that, after years of
    manipulating her hair into different styles, she suffered racial discrimination only
    when she allowed her hair to revert to its “natural . . . style”—an afro. See
    Jenkins, 
    538 F.2d at 167
     (emphasis added).
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    Here the EEOC presented a completely different theory of discrimination in
    its proposed amended complaint. It asserted that dreadlocks are protected under
    Title VII because they are culturally and physiologically associated with
    individuals of African descent.       Even if this somehow does not constitute
    abandonment of the argument that dreadlocks are an immutable characteristic of
    black individuals, the complaint failed to assert that dreadlocks are a black
    individual’s hair in its natural, unmediated state.
    *****
    Judge Martin cites to portions of the complaint she believes alleged that
    dreadlocks occur naturally. But when read in context, the allegations Judge Martin
    cites to do not support her position. The complaint’s thesis is that dreadlocks are a
    hairstyle that is suitable for black individuals’ hair, and the snippets she selects are
    not to the contrary. See, e.g., D.E. 21-1 at ¶ 19, 26, 28.
    For example, one of the allegations Judge Martin cites is that “[d]readlocks
    are formed in a [b]lack person’s hair naturally, without any manipulation.” Id. at
    ¶ 19.    This phrase, however, comes after the introductory sentence of that
    paragraph, which states that “[d]readlocks [are] a manner of wearing hair that is
    common for [b]lack people and suitable for [b]lack hair texture,” and is followed
    by an acknowledgment that dreadlocks can be formed “by the manual
    manipulation of hair into larger coils of hair.”        Id.     Indeed, the complaint’s
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    references to the “natural texture” of black individuals’ hair, id. at ¶ 27, which
    “naturally grows in very tight coarse coils,” id. at ¶ 22, are assertions embedded in
    a section of the complaint dedicated to explaining the uniqueness of black hair and
    the challenges black individuals face when it comes to their hair styling choices.
    See id. at ¶ 22–27. That section of the complaint reiterates that “dreadlocks are a
    method of hair styling suitable for the texture of black hair and culturally
    associated with [b]lack people.”      See id. at ¶ 26.     Finally, the complaint’s
    description of dreadlocks as “physiologically and culturally associated with people
    of African descent,” id. at ¶ 28, is similarly followed by the statement that
    dreadlocks are “a manner of wearing hair that is suitable to the texture of [b]lack
    hair.” Id.
    In sum, the allegations cited by Judge Martin do not support the claim that
    dreadlocks are naturally occurring.     To the contrary, the complaint faithfully
    reflects the overarching theme of the EEOC’s Title VII theory—that dreadlocks are
    a protected cultural choice—and it was on that theory that the panel resolved the
    case.
    *****
    Judge Martin contends that, even if banning dreadlocks isn’t per se race
    discrimination, the complaint plausibly stated that CMS used dreadlocks as a
    pretext for not hiring Ms. Jones on account of her race. Analogizing to Price
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    Waterhouse, she argues that a ban on dreadlocks is a proxy for not employing
    black individuals because the two, according to the complaint, are associated by a
    stereotype that black individuals’ hair is unprofessional.
    This case, however, is very different from Price Waterhouse. In Price
    Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins plausibly stated a claim of intentional sex discrimination
    because the firm’s partners had, on multiple occasions, made it clear that their
    primary    grievance—what      they   described    as    Ms.   Hopkins’   “over[   ]
    aggressive[ness]” and “macho” demeanor—was that a woman was displaying traits
    stereotypically associated with men. See Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at 235
    . They
    were not shy about it either; one partner even admitted that the other partners only
    objected to Ms. Hopkins’ prodigious swearing “because it’s a lady using foul
    language.” 
    Id.
    CMS’ prohibition against dreadlocks, by contrast, is based on a race-neutral
    policy that applies with equal force to men and women (and hairstyles) of all races.
    So, unlike the situation in Price Waterhouse, the policy against the allegedly
    stereotypical characteristic (dreadlocks) is unmoored from the protected category
    (Ms. Jones’ race). See Brown v. D.C. Transit Sys., Inc., 
    523 F.2d 725
    , 728 (D.C.
    Cir. 1975) (holding that, unless there is evidence of pretext or bad faith, “[t]he
    wearing of a uniform, the type of uniform, the requirement of hirsute conformity
    applicable to whites and blacks alike, are simply non-discriminatory conditions of
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    employment”) (emphasis added). See also Jespersen, 
    444 F.3d at 1111
     (holding
    that gender-based grooming policy did not constitute “[i]mpermissible sex
    stereotyping” in part because comparable grooming requirements applied equally
    to all employees, “male and female”). And although the complaint alleged that
    black individuals wear dreadlocks more often than persons of other racial groups,
    that assertion makes more sense in the context of a disparate-impact claim, which
    considers whether one group of people is disproportionately affected by a facially-
    neutral policy. But that theory of Title VII liability is not at issue here because the
    EEOC declined to pursue it.
    *****
    The EEOC brought this case on behalf of Ms. Jones in the hopes that we
    would do what neither it (through its rulemaking authority), nor Congress, nor any
    other court has done: update the meaning of race in Title VII to reflect its
    increasingly nebulous (and disputed) boundaries. But there is no legal or factual
    agreement on where those boundaries lie, and Judge Martin and the EEOC do not
    pretend otherwise. Debates rage in the academy (as well as in society) over
    whether race is biological, cultural, consensus-based, or some or none of the
    above; over who gets to make the call about the meaning of race; and over how
    concepts associated with race (including cultural traits) are treated.             See
    Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1033–34 (collecting some of the literature). There
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    is even disagreement over whether dreadlocks are exclusively (or even primarily)
    of African descent. See BERT ASHE, TWISTED: MY DREADLOCK CHRONICLES 36
    (2015) (“The first written evidence of dreadlocks is in the Vedic scriptures, which
    are of Indian origin[,] . . . [and] were developed and written about 2,500 years
    ago[.]”).
    As far as I can tell, the position advocated by the EEOC could reduce the
    concept of race in Title VII to little more than subjective notions of cultural
    appropriation. See Initial Br. of EEOC at 35–37 (arguing that Title VII shields
    symbols of racial pride, as defined by the user). Perhaps this view reflects the
    future of Title VII, but if so, Congress is the proper entity through which to effect
    such significant change.
    For the time being, we are left with Supreme Court precedent explaining that
    discrimination based on stereotypes is circumstantial evidence of discrimination on
    the basis of a protected category, and with circuit precedent telling us that
    protected categories and characteristics must be immutable. Those two lines of
    authority, in my opinion, are not mutually exclusive.
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    MARTIN, Circuit Judge, with whom ROSENBAUM and JILL PRYOR, Circuit
    Judges join, dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc:
    Chastity Jones, a black woman, applied for a position at Catastrophe
    Management Solutions (“CMS”). She got the job. But after she was hired, the
    human resources manager—who is white—told Ms. Jones the company had to
    rescind its job offer because she wore her hair in dreadlocks. The manager told
    Ms. Jones the problem with dreadlocks is “they tend to get messy,” but at the same
    time recognized that Ms. Jones’s own dreadlocks were not messy. Even so, CMS
    took away Ms. Jones’s job offer because her hair violated the company’s blanket
    ban on dreadlocks.
    The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) filed suit
    against CMS on behalf of Ms. Jones. The complaint alleged that CMS
    discriminated against Ms. Jones on the basis of her race, in violation of Title VII of
    the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. The complaint alleged that
    dreadlocks are black hair in its natural, unmanipulated state, and that the natural
    texture of black hair carries with it a deeply entrenched racial stereotype that sees
    black people as “unprofessional,” “extreme,” and “not neat.” The complaint also
    alleged that CMS’s stated reason for banning dreadlocks—“they tend to get
    messy”—did not apply to Ms. Jones, as the human resources manager
    acknowledged Ms. Jones’s hair was not messy. Thus, the complaint indicated that
    CMS’s only reason for refusing to hire Ms. Jones was the false racial stereotype.
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    Even with these clear allegations of racial discrimination, the District Court
    dismissed this action based on the pleadings alone. See Equal Emp’t Opportunity
    Comm’n v. Catastrophe Mgmt. Sols., 
    852 F.3d 1018
    , 1021 (11th Cir. 2016). This
    means, of course, that the courthouse doors were closed to Ms. Jones without
    either she or CMS having any opportunity for factual exploration or development
    of her claims. On this limited record, then, a panel of this Court affirmed. And
    now, despite the startling nature of the precedent created by the panel opinion, a
    majority of this Court has voted not to rehear the case en banc. I dissent from that
    decision.
    The panel held that the complaint failed to state a claim because Title VII
    prohibits only discrimination based on “immutable traits” and dreadlocks are not
    “an immutable characteristic of black persons.” 
    Id. at 1021
    . The panel said our
    decision in Willingham v. Macon Tel. Publ’g Co., 
    507 F.2d 1084
     (5th Cir. 1975)
    (en banc),1 dictates this conclusion. See Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1028–30.
    I cannot agree. By resting its decision on Willingham’s mutable/immutable
    distinction, the panel revives—in fact, expands—a doctrine the Supreme Court
    invalidated more than twenty-five years ago in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 
    490 U.S. 228
    , 
    109 S. Ct. 1775
     (1989). Even if Willingham’s immutable-trait
    1
    In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 
    661 F.2d 1206
     (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), we adopted as binding
    precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down before October 1, 1981. 
    Id. at 1209
    .
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    requirement survived Price Waterhouse, the allegations the EEOC made here on
    behalf of Ms. Jones are sufficient to satisfy that requirement and state a Title VII
    disparate treatment claim.
    I. BACKGROUND
    In May 2010, Ms. Jones applied to be a customer service representative at
    CMS, a claims-processing company in Mobile, Alabama. Catastrophe Mgmt., 852
    F.3d at 1021. The position did not involve any in-person contact with customers.
    It called for speaking with customers only over the phone, from a large call center.
    Id. Ms. Jones was selected for an in-person interview. Id. She arrived at CMS a
    few days later dressed in a business suit. Id. She wore her hair in short
    dreadlocks. Id.
    First, Ms. Jones interviewed one-on-one with a CMS “trainer.” The trainer
    made no mention of her hair, nor did any other CMS employee who saw Ms.
    Jones. After her interview, CMS’s human resources manager Jeannie Wilson, a
    white woman, informed Ms. Jones and a number of other applicants they had been
    hired. Id. Ms. Wilson explained that they would need to complete scheduled lab
    tests and paperwork before beginning employment. Id. Ms. Wilson offered to
    meet privately with anyone who had a conflict with the time set for the tests. Id.
    After the group meeting, Ms. Jones met privately with Ms. Wilson to talk
    about a scheduling conflict and request a different date for her lab tests. Id. Ms.
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    Wilson told Ms. Jones she could come back to complete the lab work at another
    time. Id.
    Ms. Jones was about to leave when Ms. Wilson asked her whether her hair
    was in “dreadlocks.” Id. Ms. Jones said yes, and Ms. Wilson replied that CMS
    could not hire her with dreadlocks. Id. When Ms. Jones asked why her dreadlocks
    would be a problem, Ms. Wilson said: “[T]hey tend to get messy, although I’m not
    saying yours are, but you know what I’m talking about.” Id. Ms. Jones then told
    Ms. Wilson she would not cut her hair off. Id. at 1022. Ms. Wilson responded that
    CMS could no longer hire her. Id.
    At the time, CMS had a written policy that said: “All personnel are expected
    to be dressed and groomed in a manner that projects a professional and
    businesslike image while adhering to company and industry standards and/or
    guidelines. . . . [H]airstyle should reflect a business/professional image. No
    excessive hairstyles or unusual colors are acceptable[.]” Id. It had no formal,
    written policy about dreadlocks. Judge Jordan says CMS “does not hire anyone,
    black or white, who uses an ‘excessive hairstyle [],’ a category that includes
    dreadlocks.” This is surmise on Judge Jordan’s part. Because Ms. Jones’s case
    was dismissed based on the face of her pleadings, the record before this Court is
    devoid of any evidence about how CMS has ever applied its hair policy to anyone
    who is not black.
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    II. DISCUSSION
    The panel concluded that our previous decision in Willingham required it to
    affirm the dismissal of Ms. Jones’s disparate treatment claim. See Catastrophe
    Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1028–30. Willingham addressed an employer policy that
    required male employees to keep their hair shorter than shoulder length but
    allowed female employees to wear their hair any length. 
    507 F.2d at
    1087–88.
    The employer adopted the requirement to avoid the association between “long hair
    on men [and] the counter-culture types.” 
    Id. at 1087
    . The plaintiff was a man who
    had been denied a position because his hair was too long. 
    Id.
     He brought a Title
    VII claim alleging that this policy discriminated on the basis of his sex. 
    Id. at 1086
    . The former Fifth Circuit rejected his claim. It “adopt[ed] the view . . . that
    distinctions in employment practices between men and women on the basis of
    something other than immutable or protected characteristics do not inhibit
    employment opportunity in violation of [Title VII].” 
    Id. at 1092
    . Because “[h]air
    length is not immutable,” the Willingham court reasoned, the plaintiff had no
    claim. 
    Id.
     at 1091–92.
    The panel in Ms. Jones’s case reads Willingham to establish a general rule
    that Title VII protects against discrimination only if that “discrimination [is] based
    on immutable characteristics.” Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1028. Her panel
    then applied this “immutable/mutable distinction” to the EEOC’s complaint. Id. at
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    1030. Because the “complaint did not allege that dreadlocks are an immutable
    characteristic of black persons,” the panel reasoned, the complaint failed to state a
    claim under Title VII. Id. at 1022; see also id. at 1030. In reaching this
    conclusion, the panel decided that dreadlocks are merely a “cultural practice[],” id.
    at 1030, and are not “beyond the [plaintiff’s] power to alter.” Id. at 1029 (quoting
    Garcia v. Gloor, 
    618 F.2d 264
    , 269 (5th Cir. 1980)). So, since Ms. Jones could
    “alter” her dreadlocks, she failed to get past Willingham’s “immutable
    characteristic limitation.” 
    Id.
    A.
    Willingham’s immutable-trait requirement is no longer good law, and Ms.
    Jones’s panel was wrong to invoke it. The Supreme Court’s 1989 decision in Price
    Waterhouse made clear that Title VII’s prohibition against discrimination on the
    basis of a statutorily protected class is not limited to protecting only those
    characteristics of the class that may be deemed “immutable.” Because Price
    Waterhouse undermined Willingham’s immutable-trait requirement “to the point
    of abrogation,” the panel should not have relied on it to dismiss Ms. Jones’s claim.
    See Chambers v. Thompson, 
    150 F.3d 1324
    , 1326 (11th Cir. 1998).
    Price Waterhouse addressed sex discrimination. Ann Hopkins alleged that
    her employer, the accounting firm Price Waterhouse, refused to allow her to
    become a partner in the firm because her gender presentation defied the firm’s
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    view of how a woman should look and act. One partner described her as “macho.”
    Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at 235
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1782
     (plurality opinion). Another
    advised her to take “a course at charm school.” 
    Id.
     But the “coup de grace,” to use
    the Supreme Court’s term, came from a partner who told Ms. Hopkins she needed
    to “walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear
    make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.” 
    Id.
     (emphasis omitted).
    The Supreme Court held that these comments showed Price Waterhouse
    discriminated against Ms. Hopkins on the basis of her sex in violation of Title VII.2
    
    Id.
     at 250–51, 
    109 S. Ct. at
    1790–91; 
    id.
     at 258–61, 
    109 S. Ct. 1795
    –96 (White, J.,
    concurring); 
    id.
     at 272–73, 
    109 S. Ct. 1802
    –03 (O’Connor, J., concurring). None
    of the traits the employer identified as its reasons for not promoting Ms. Hopkins
    were immutable. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that discrimination on the
    basis of these traits, which Ms. Hopkins could but did not change, constituted sex
    discrimination. The Court explained that discrimination on the basis of these
    mutable characteristics—how a woman talks, dresses, or styles her hair—showed
    discrimination on the basis of sex. In asking Ms. Hopkins to make these aspects of
    2
    Although there was no majority opinion in Price Waterhouse, I refer to this as the holding of
    the Court because it was the opinion of the four-justice plurality decision, and neither Justice
    White nor Justice O’Connor, each of whom concurred in the judgment, had any quarrel with it.
    See Marks v. United States, 
    430 U.S. 188
    , 193, 
    97 S. Ct. 990
    , 993 (1977) (“When a fragmented
    Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five
    Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who
    concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” (quotation omitted and alteration
    adopted)).
    20
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017   Page: 21 of 41
    her “deportment” more feminine, Price Waterhouse required her to conform to “the
    stereotype associated with” her sex. 
    Id. at 251, 256
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791, 1794
    . The
    Supreme Court declared:
    [W]e are beyond the day when an employer could evaluate employees
    by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated
    with their group, for in forbidding employers to discriminate against
    individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the
    entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting
    from sex stereotypes.
    
    Id. at 251
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
     (quotation omitted and alteration adopted). Since this
    declaration from the Supreme Court, our Court has repeatedly recognized that
    “discrimination on the basis of gender stereotype is sex-based discrimination.”
    Glenn v. Brumby, 
    663 F.3d 1312
    , 1316 (11th Cir. 2011); see Evans v. Ga. Reg’l
    Hosp., 
    850 F.3d 1248
    , 1254 (11th Cir. 2017) (same); see also Equal Emp’t
    Opportunity Comm’n v. Boh Bros. Const. Co., 
    731 F.3d 444
    , 454 & n.4 (5th Cir.
    2013) (collecting cases of the other circuits stating the same conclusion).
    The lesson of Price Waterhouse is clear. An employment decision based on
    a stereotype associated with the employee’s protected class may be disparate
    treatment under Title VII even when the stereotyped trait is not an “immutable”
    biological characteristic of the employee. As this Court has recognized, “Title VII
    bar[s] not just discrimination because of biological sex, but also gender
    stereotyping—failing to act and appear according to expectations defined by
    gender.” Glenn, 663 F.3d at 1316 (emphasis added); see also Evans, 850 F.3d at
    21
    Case: 14-13482      Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 22 of 41
    1260 (William Pryor, J., concurring) (stating that Price Waterhouse “concerned
    claims that an employee’s behavior . . . deviated from a gender stereotype held by
    an employer” and that “[t]he doctrine of gender nonconformity is, and always has
    been, behavior based”).
    Thus, after Price Waterhouse, Title VII’s protections clearly extend beyond
    Willingham’s requirement that a plaintiff show discrimination based on an
    immutable trait. In Willingham, the plaintiff, who was denied employment solely
    because he did not have the short haircut required of male employees, argued that
    “since short hair is stereotypically male, requiring it of all male applicants violates
    [Title VII].” 
    507 F.2d at 1089
    . Mr. Willingham raised the gender-stereotyping
    argument, so the court necessarily and expressly considered whether “sexual
    stereotypes violate [Title VII].” 
    Id. at 1090
    . Our court concluded they do not. See
    
    id.
     at 1092–93. In rejecting the gender-stereotyping theory of liability, the
    Willingham court held that the “objective” of “eliminating sexual stereotypes . . . .
    may not be read into the Civil Rights Act of 1964 without further Congressional
    action.” 
    Id. at 1092
    . “Congress,” the court reasoned, “did not intend for its
    proscription of sexual discrimination to have [such] significant and sweeping
    implications.” 
    Id. at 1090
    . But of course this is precisely what the Supreme Court
    in Price Waterhouse told us Congress intended. See Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at 251
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
     (“Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of
    22
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017   Page: 23 of 41
    disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.”).
    Commentators have long noted that this Court’s decision in Willingham
    “predate[s] the Supreme Court’s more expansive prohibitions of sexual
    stereotyping [in Price Waterhouse] and thus relied on reasoning that is no longer
    good law.” Mary Anne C. Case, Disaggregating Gender from Sex and Sexual
    Orientation: The Effeminate Man in the Law and Feminist Jurisprudence, 
    105 Yale L.J. 1
    , 61 (1995); see also Robert Post, Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of
    American Antidiscrimination Law, 
    88 Cal. L. Rev. 1
    , 35–36 & n.166 (2000)
    (explaining that in the face of Price Waterhouse, Willingham and other cases
    upholding sex-differentiated grooming codes present a “spectacle of preposterous
    doctrinal formulations”).
    When a “direct[] conflict” like this arises between our prior precedent and a
    later decision of the Supreme Court, it is our obligation to leave our precedent
    behind and respect the Supreme Court’s pronouncement. See United States v.
    White, 
    837 F.3d 1225
    , 1230–31 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (quotation omitted);
    see also Davis v. Singletary, 
    119 F.3d 1471
    , 1482 (11th Cir. 1997) (“To the extent
    of any inconsistency between our [earlier] pronouncements and the Supreme
    Court’s supervening ones, of course, we are required to heed those of the Supreme
    Court.”). By applying Willingham to dismiss Ms. Jones’s case, our Court has
    shirked its obligation.
    23
    Case: 14-13482       Date Filed: 12/05/2017       Page: 24 of 41
    B.
    Beyond that, when the panel relied on Willingham’s invalid immutable-trait
    requirement, it did not reach the wrong result for only Ms. Jones. Sadly, it takes
    our entire Title VII disparate-treatment jurisprudence down a misguided path.
    Since Price Waterhouse, this Court had applied Willingham only one time. That
    was to uphold a sex-differentiated hair-length policy that was indistinguishable
    from the one at issue in Willingham. See Harper v. Blockbuster Entm’t Corp., 
    139 F.3d 1385
    , 1387 (11th Cir. 1998).3 Other than Harper, this Court has completely
    avoided Willingham’s immutable-trait requirement. The rarity with which we
    have invoked the Willingham requirement after Price Waterhouse suggests that—
    until now—our Court understood its requirement was no longer sound.4
    The panel decision thus resurrects what had been, for good reason, a dead
    letter in this circuit. And it does so in very broad terms. Instead of limiting the
    3
    In Harper, this Court disposed of the plaintiffs’ claim in one sentence, saying it was “squarely
    foreclose[d]” by Willingham. Harper, 
    139 F.3d at 1387
    . There was no mention of Price
    Waterhouse.
    4
    The decision in Glenn also makes clear this Court had rejected the immutable-trait requirement.
    In Glenn we held that “discrimination against a transgender individual because of her gender-
    nonconformity is sex discrimination.” Glenn, 663 F.3d at 1317. This result, we explained, was
    compelled by Price Waterhouse. Id. at 1316–17. Glenn’s holding is a stark repudiation of the
    immutable-trait requirement. When an employer takes an adverse action against a transgender
    employee because of the employee’s gender nonconformity, the employer is not discriminating
    based on an immutable characteristic of sex. To the contrary, the employer has discriminated
    against the employee because the employee’s appearance flouts the perceived immutability of
    sexual characteristics. See id. at 1316 (“A person is defined as transgender precisely because of
    the perception that his or her behavior transgresses gender stereotypes.”). We have therefore
    recognized that the very act of changing one’s appearance can be the basis of an employment
    discrimination claim.
    24
    Case: 14-13482      Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 25 of 41
    immutable-trait requirement to cases involving grooming policies, the opinion
    appears to hold that the “immutable characteristic limitation” applies to all Title
    VII disparate treatment claims. Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1029; see, e.g., id.
    at 1021 (“[O]ur precedent holds that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on
    immutable traits . . . .”); id. at 1028 (“Title VII protects against discrimination
    based on immutable characteristics.”); id. at 1030 (“Title VII protects persons in
    covered categories with respect to their immutable characteristics, but not their
    cultural practices.”). To the extent the panel opinion revives the immutable-trait
    requirement for sex discrimination claims, it directly contradicts our post-Price
    Waterhouse precedent recognizing sex discrimination claims based on gender
    nonconformity. See Evans, 850 F.3d at 1254 (“Discrimination based on failure to
    conform to a gender stereotype is sex-based discrimination.”); Glenn, 663 F.3d at
    1316 (same). After all, the crux of every gender-nonconformity claim is that the
    way an employee chooses to present her gender, through any number of mutable
    characteristics, is protected by Title VII.
    My reading of the panel opinion tells me that the panel not only resurrects
    this damaging immutable-trait requirement, it expands that requirement. It does so
    by applying the doctrine to disparate treatment claims alleging race discrimination.
    Before Ms. Jones’s panel opinion, this Court had never applied Willingham’s
    immutable-trait requirement to a race-based disparate treatment claim. Now, the
    25
    Case: 14-13482       Date Filed: 12/05/2017        Page: 26 of 41
    panel has extended the doctrine to race claims, which pushes the invalid doctrine
    into a whole new category of Title VII claims. Willingham mentioned race only
    once. It said that “race” itself is an “immutable characteristic[]” and therefore
    protected under Title VII. 
    507 F.2d at 1091
     (“Equal employment opportunity may
    be secured only when employers are barred from discriminating against employees
    on the basis of immutable characteristics, such as race and national origin.”). In
    other words, Willingham used the concept of immutability to identify race as a
    characteristic that is a prohibited basis for employer decision-making. Willingham
    never said anything about using immutability against a racial group to exclude
    certain features of racial identity from statutory protection.5 See Camille Gear
    Rich, Performing Racial and Ethnic Identity: Discrimination by Proxy and the
    Future of Title VII, 
    79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1134
    , 1216, 1220 (2004) (recognizing this
    flaw in the extension of the “immutability construct” to claims of race
    discrimination).
    It isn’t hard to see why an immutable-trait requirement has no place in the
    race-discrimination context. The doctrine presumes that there are immutable, or
    naturally-occurring physical differences between racial groups. This, even though
    5
    In Garcia, the former Fifth Circuit applied the immutable-trait requirement to a claim of
    national-origin discrimination, upholding an employer’s English-only policy. See 
    618 F.2d at 270
    . But the court said nothing about applying the requirement in the context of race
    discrimination. Rather, as far as race is concerned, Garcia made only the same point as
    Willingham—that the racial classifications themselves are immutable and therefore protected.
    See Garcia, 
    618 F.2d at 269
     (“No one can change his place of birth (national origin), the place of
    birth of his forebears (national origin), his race or fundamental sexual characteristics.”).
    26
    Case: 14-13482      Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 27 of 41
    both the academy and the courts have long rejected the notion that racial divisions
    are based on biological differences. See Ian F. Haney Lopez, The Social
    Construction of Race: Some Observations on Illusion, Fabrication, and Choice, 
    29 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 1
    , 11–20 (1994) (collecting sources and explaining that
    “[t]he rejection of race in science is now almost complete”). Summarizing the
    findings of “[m]any modern biologists and anthropologists,” the Supreme Court
    told us three decades ago:
    Clear-cut [racial] categories do not exist. The particular traits which
    have generally been chosen to characterize races have been criticized
    as having little biological significance. It has been found that
    differences between individuals of the same race are often greater than
    the differences between the “average” individuals of different races.
    Saint Francis Coll. v. Al-Khazraji, 
    481 U.S. 604
    , 610 n.4, 
    107 S. Ct. 2022
    ,
    2026 n.4 (1987).
    The supposed distinction between an “immutable” racial trait and a
    “mutable” one is illusory. Is the color of an employee’s hair an immutable trait?
    What about the shape of an employee’s nose? It seems to me that employers could
    use the panel’s rule to argue that any case in which the employer hasn’t overtly
    discriminated on the basis of skin color itself falls outside of Title VII’s
    protections. And even that may be questionable, because with modern medicine
    skin color can be changed too. See Margaret L. Hunter, Buying Racial Capital:
    27
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 28 of 41
    Skin-bleaching and Cosmetic Surgery in a Globalized World, 4 J. Pan Afr. Studies
    4, 142–64 (2011).
    The panel opinion itself shows us that the notion of an “immutable” racial
    characteristic is fiction. In an effort to give lower courts an example of “the
    distinction between immutable and mutable characteristics of race,” the panel
    draws a bright line between dreadlocks and an Afro. Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d
    at 1030. The panel actually says that while dreadlocks, a “black hairstyle,” is a
    “mutable choice” and therefore not protected, an Afro, “black hair texture,” is an
    “immutable characteristic” and is therefore protected. Id. This distinction is
    nonsense. If an immutable trait is something that is “beyond the [plaintiff]’s power
    to alter,” id. at 1029 (quotation omitted), then neither dreadlocks nor Afros are
    immutable traits of black people. Like any hair style, both can be altered.
    In fact, the very case the panel relies on for the proposition that Afros are an
    immutable characteristic, Jenkins v. Blue Cross Mutual Hospital Insurance, Inc.,
    
    538 F.2d 164
     (7th Cir. 1976) (en banc), disproves the point. See Catastrophe
    Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1030 (citing Jenkins, 
    538 F.2d at 168
    ). In Jenkins, the Seventh
    Circuit held that a black employee’s allegation that she was denied a promotion
    because she wore her hair in an Afro stated a Title VII claim for race
    discrimination. 
    538 F.2d at 168
    . But contrary to Ms. Jones’s panel’s assertion that
    an Afro constitutes “an immutable characteristic,” Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at
    28
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 29 of 41
    1030, the Jenkins decision actually highlights the mutability of an Afro. In
    Jenkins, the plaintiff made the choice to style her hair in an Afro after years of
    wearing her hair differently. 
    538 F.2d at 167
    . The plaintiff affirmatively alleged
    that she worked for her employer for three years with “no problem until May 1970
    when I got my natural hair style.” 
    Id. at 167
    ; see also 
    id.
     at 168–69 (repeatedly
    describing the plaintiff’s Afro as a “hairstyle”). The Seventh Circuit concluded
    that an allegation of discrimination based on a black employee’s Afro stated a
    claim under Title VII not because an Afro is an immutable characteristic of black
    people, but instead because singling the plaintiff out on account of her “Afro
    hairstyle was merely the method by which the plaintiff’s supervisor [] expressed
    the employer’s racial discrimination.” 
    Id. at 168
    .
    The discriminatory animus that motivates an employer to ban dreadlocks
    offends the antidiscrimination principle embodied in Title VII just as much as the
    discriminatory animus motivating a ban on Afros. Both are distinctly African-
    American racial traits. So, when an employer refuses to hire or promote a black
    employee on the basis of one of those traits, there is a strong indication that the
    employee’s race motivated the decision. In other words, when an aspect of a
    person’s appearance marks her as a member of a protected class and her employer
    then cites that racial marker as the reason for taking action against her, the
    employee’s race probably had something to do with it. Whether that racialized
    29
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 30 of 41
    aspect of her appearance is “immutable” such as skin color or “mutable” such as
    hair is beside the point. Either way, the employer’s action based on a racial
    identifier is an action based on the employee’s race.
    In order to faithfully apply Title VII’s ban on racial discrimination, courts
    must identify discriminatory intent in all its disguises. That is why we instruct
    district courts to look for “circumstantial evidence . . . [of] the employer’s
    discriminatory intent,” however that intent may manifest. Smith v. Lockheed-
    Martin Corp., 
    644 F.3d 1321
    , 1328 (11th Cir. 2011); see also Ash v. Tyson Foods,
    Inc., 
    546 U.S. 454
    , 456, 
    126 S. Ct. 1195
    , 1197 (2006) (per curiam) (holding that
    even a facially race-neutral remark may be “probative of bias,” “depend[ing] on
    various factors including context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and
    historical usage”). Yet the panel opinion forces courts in Alabama, Florida, and
    Georgia to close their eyes to compelling evidence of discriminatory intent. This
    flies in the face of the broad mandate courts have been given in disparate treatment
    cases.
    In concluding this debate between two appeals court judges, neither of us
    African American, about what is an immutable characteristic of African American
    hair, the ironies are not lost on me. Ms. Jones is not going to be impacted much by
    which view ultimately prevails in what Judge Jordan refers to as the “[d]ebates
    [that] rage in the academy (as well as in society) over whether race is biological,
    30
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 31 of 41
    cultural consensus-based, or some or none of the above.” Ms. Jones’s complaint
    plainly sets out facts that plausibly support her claim that CMS withdrew her job
    offer based on a marker of her race. As you’ve read, Judge Jordan himself
    recognizes that there is “no legal or factual agreement” about the relationship
    between a person’s hair style and her race. That being the case, Ms. Jones had
    every reason to come into federal court, seeking to have a jury instructed on the
    law that governs this dispute, and then decide these facts about which we cannot
    agree. Ms. Jones should have had that opportunity.
    C.
    In the ways I have set out, the panel went astray when it invoked
    Willingham’s immutable-trait requirement to dismiss the EEOC’s complaint. I
    will now review how the EEOC’s allegations should have been analyzed. Once we
    put aside the no-longer valid immutable-trait requirement and instead analyze the
    complaint under the stereotyping doctrine from Price Waterhouse, the complaint
    easily sets out a plausible claim for race-based disparate treatment. It therefore
    should have survived CMS’s motion to dismiss. See Am. Dental Ass’n v. Cigna
    Corp., 
    605 F.3d 1283
    , 1289 (11th Cir. 2010) (“[T]o survive a motion to dismiss, a
    complaint must [] contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a
    claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
    
    550 U.S. 544
    , 570, 
    127 S. Ct. 1955
    , 1974 (2007)).
    31
    Case: 14-13482       Date Filed: 12/05/2017      Page: 32 of 41
    Price Waterhouse teaches that, for purposes of Title VII, it does not matter
    whether the trait the employer disfavors is mutable or immutable. What matters is
    whether that trait is linked, by stereotype, to a protected category. See 
    490 U.S. at 251
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
    . Price Waterhouse didn’t refuse to promote all employees
    who are women (an “immutable” trait). It refused to promote a subset of women:
    those who failed to conform to a stereotype of how a woman should look in the
    workplace. See 
    id. at 235
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1782
     (“Hopkins [was told she needed
    to] . . . dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear
    jewelry.”). CMS’s ban on dreadlocks works the same way. The company might
    not refuse to hire all black applicants. Rather, it refuses to hire a subset of black
    applicants: those who, because of their hair, fail to conform to a stereotypical
    notion of how a black person should look in the workplace.6
    The EEOC clearly alleged that dreadlocks are a stereotyped trait of African
    Americans. The complaint explains that the perception that dreadlocks are
    “unprofessional” and “not neat” is grounded in a deep-seated white cultural
    association between black hair and dirtiness. This perception has origins in slavery
    itself. See Doc. 21-1 ¶ 20 (alleging that the term “dreadlock” originated during the
    slave trade, when “slave traders referred to the slaves’ hair as ‘dreadful’” because
    6
    This Court’s precedent made clear, nearly a decade before Price Waterhouse, that the reach of
    Title VII “is not to be diluted because discrimination adversely affects only a portion of the
    protected class.” Jefferies v. Harris Cty. Cmty. Action Ass’n, 
    615 F.2d 1025
    , 1034 (5th Cir.
    1980) (quotation omitted); see 
    id. at 1033
     (“[D]isparate treatment of a subclass of women could
    constitute a violation of Title VII . . . .”).
    32
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 33 of 41
    slaves’ hair often “became matted with blood, feces, urine, sweat, tears, and dirt”
    during the transatlantic voyage). Thus, the complaint plainly asserts, the
    “assumption” that “dreadlocks inevitably will get messy” is “based on stereotyped
    notions of how Black people should and should not wear their hair and is premised
    on a normative standard and preference for White hair.”
    The EEOC also alleged that CMS relied on this racial stereotype when it
    rescinded Ms. Jones’s job offer. To begin, there is certainly daylight between
    CMS’s formal, written grooming policy, which did not single out any particular
    hairstyle, and its informal, unwritten ban on dreadlocks. CMS’s written grooming
    policy was race neutral: all employees’ hairstyles must “reflect a
    business/professional image” and must not be “excessive.” Yet CMS then decided
    to interpret this race-neutral policy to ban a particular type of hairstyle. According
    to the complaint, the hairstyle selected by CMS typically grows “naturally” only in
    black people’s hair and not in white people’s. Ms. Jones was told that CMS could
    not hire her with dreadlocks. CMS’s ban on dreadlocks therefore appears to be
    categorical, presumably meaning that the company views all dreadlocks as
    “excessive” and lacking a “business[like]/professional image.” As the human
    resources manager, Ms. Wilson, explained to Ms. Jones, the problem with
    dreadlocks is “they tend to get messy.” But again, the complaint explained that
    CMS’s “assumption that [] dreadlocks inevitably will get messy” is grounded in
    33
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 34 of 41
    “stereotyped notions” of black physical characteristics and a racial preference for
    employees with characteristically white traits. Thus, taking the facts alleged in the
    complaint as true, CMS’s stated reason for not hiring Ms. Jones was plainly a
    racial stereotype.
    Price Waterhouse tells us that an employer’s mere mention of a stereotype
    related to the employee’s protected class does “not inevitably prove that [the
    employee’s protected status] played a part in [the] particular employment
    decision.” 
    490 U.S. at 251
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
    . Instead, the plaintiff has the burden
    to “show that the employer actually relied on her [protected class] in making its
    decision,” and “stereotyped remarks can certainly be evidence” of that. 
    Id.
    Again, this case was decided on the pleadings. The EEOC therefore had no
    obligation to prove that CMS reneged on Ms. Jones’s job offer because of her race.
    It only had to allege facts to show this is plausible. Twombly, 
    550 U.S. at 570
    , 
    127 S. Ct. at 1974
    . I view the allegations I’ve discussed as sufficient to support a
    plausible claim that CMS relied on Ms. Jones’s race in deciding to revoke her offer
    of employment. The stereotyping here, like that in Price Waterhouse, “did not
    simply consist of stray remarks” by a non-decisionmaker. See 
    490 U.S. at 251
    ,
    
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
    . The racial stereotype was the express reason, indeed the only
    reason, CMS gave for not hiring Ms. Jones. And it came straight from the
    manager who decided not to hire her. See Quigg v. Thomas Cty. Sch. Dist., 814
    34
    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 35 of 
    41 F.3d 1227
    , 1242 (11th Cir. 2016) (holding that remarks based on sex stereotypes
    constituted circumstantial evidence of sex discrimination sufficient to overcome
    summary judgment where the remarks were made “during conversations about”
    the employment decision; “in relative temporal proximity to” the decision; and
    “specifically refer[ed] to” the company’s preferences).
    But the EEOC’s complaint alleged another fact that shows, above and
    beyond plausibility, that CMS “actually relied on” Ms. Jones’s race in deciding to
    rescind her offer. See Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at 251
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1791
    .
    Immediately after Ms. Wilson gave Ms. Jones the purported nondiscriminatory
    reason for CMS’s dreadlocks ban—“they tend to get messy”—she acknowledged
    that reason did not apply to Ms. Jones’s hair: “I’m not saying yours are [messy].”
    CMS thus recognized the distinction between dreadlocks that are truly “messy”
    and dreadlocks that aren’t, and demonstrated it can tell the difference between the
    two. Even so, after it acknowledged that Ms. Jones’s hair wasn’t messy, CMS
    enforced the dreadlocks ban against her anyway. This did nothing to further the
    nondiscriminatory reason CMS gave for the company’s dreadlocks ban. Because
    CMS openly acknowledged that its only nondiscriminatory reason for the
    dreadlocks ban did not apply to Ms. Jones, we are left with only her race as the
    basis for its decision not to hire her. There is no other explanation for the
    35
    Case: 14-13482    Date Filed: 12/05/2017    Page: 36 of 41
    company’s refusal to hire a black applicant whose dreadlocks it recognizes do not
    implicate its one nondiscriminatory reason for banning dreadlocks.
    D.
    I have examined why the panel was wrong to apply the immutable-trait
    requirement and why, under Price Waterhouse, the EEOC’s complaint states a
    claim for race discrimination. But even if we were to ignore Price Waterhouse and
    apply Willingham’s immutable-trait requirement, the panel still reached the wrong
    result. The complaint clearly alleges that dreadlocks are an immutable trait that
    satisfies the Willingham requirement.
    The panel says it defines an “immutable” trait as one that is “beyond the
    [plaintiff]’s power to alter,” Catastrophe Mgmt., 852 F.3d at 1029 (quoting Garcia,
    
    618 F.2d at 269
    ), so characterizing dreadlocks as mutable might sound right. No
    one disputes that dreadlocks can be altered. Indeed, the complaint specifically
    described the “expensive and harsh treatments” that many African Americans use
    to “straighten their hair” “[i]n response to a pervasive animus toward the natural
    texture of Black people’s hair.” It also alleged that African Americans “wear wigs,
    hair pieces, or extensions to create an appearance that is consistent with Caucasian
    hair and style standards.”
    So the question of whether dreadlocks are “immutable” for purposes of
    Willingham depends entirely on how we define that term. “[B]eyond the
    36
    Case: 14-13482      Date Filed: 12/05/2017      Page: 37 of 41
    [plaintiff]’s power to alter” is certainly the definition that supports the panel’s
    holding that dreadlocks are not immutable. 
    Id.
     However, in order to justify its
    distinction between Afros and dreadlocks, the panel uses another definition of the
    term. Certainly, “beyond the [plaintiff]’s power to alter” is not the definition of
    “immutable” that would support holding an Afro to be immutable. The same
    “expensive and harsh treatments” that a black person can use to turn dreadlocks
    into Caucasian-looking hair can be used to the same effect on an Afro. Thus, the
    panel turns to a different set of definitions of “immutable.” Those are:
    “characteristics [that] are a matter of birth, and not culture,” id. at 1027; “inherited
    physical characteristics,” id.; “[characteristics] that an employee is born with,” id.
    at 1029 n.4; and, a characteristic that is not “‘the product of . . . artifice,’” id. at
    1030 (quoting Rogers v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 
    527 F. Supp. 229
    , 232 (S.D.N.Y.
    1981)). Taken together, the panel defines “immutable” as a trait that is naturally
    occurring.
    Using this definition of “immutable,” the complaint certainly alleged the
    immutability of dreadlocks. The complaint said “[d]readlocks are formed in a
    Black person’s hair naturally, without any manipulation.” (Emphasis added.) It
    also referred to dreadlocks as the “natural texture” of black hair and “African
    Americans[’] . . . natural hair.” And it explained that “[g]enerally, the hair of
    Black people naturally grows in very tight coarse coils. In contrast, the hair of
    37
    Case: 14-13482         Date Filed: 12/05/2017        Page: 38 of 41
    White people typically grows straight or in softly curled patterns.” Finally, the
    complaint described dreadlocks as “physiologically and culturally associated with
    people of African descent.” (Emphasis added.) If this isn’t enough to allege that
    dreadlocks occur naturally in black people’s hair, I don’t know what is.7
    The panel evidently believed that an Afro is black hair in its natural,
    unmediated state, while dreadlocks are not. But at the motion to dismiss stage, we
    must accept all of the factual allegations in the complaint as true. Erickson v.
    Pardus, 
    551 U.S. 89
    , 93–94, 
    127 S. Ct. 2197
    , 2200 (2007) (per curiam). The panel
    did not do that. In concluding that the EEOC’s complaint “did not allege that
    dreadlocks are an immutable characteristic of black persons,” Catastrophe Mgmt.,
    852 F.3d at 1022, the panel ignored the plaintiff’s well-pled allegations that
    dreadlocks occur “naturally” in a black person’s hair. Instead, the panel
    substituted its own notion that the only natural black hair is an Afro.
    *       *       *
    The appearance of a person’s hair is always capable of change—hair can be
    cut, straightened, curled, or covered. The question is whether Title VII protects a
    black employee’s choice to wear her hair in its natural state. The panel concedes it
    7
    The complaint also alleged, in the alternative, that “even if [dreadlocks] [are] not an immutable
    characteristic,” they are, “[s]imilar to the Afro, . . . a manner of wearing hair that is suitable to
    the texture of Black hair and that has been worn by Black individuals as a cultural symbol.”
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    Case: 14-13482     Date Filed: 12/05/2017   Page: 39 of 41
    does. See id. at 1030. That leaves only the question of whether the EEOC’s
    complaint sufficiently alleged that dreadlocks are natural hair. It does.
    III. CONCLUSION
    “[T]he very purpose of [T]itle VII is to promote hiring on the basis of job
    qualifications, rather than on the basis of race or color.” Griggs v. Duke Power
    Co., 
    401 U.S. 424
    , 434, 
    91 S. Ct. 849
    , 855 (1971) (quotation omitted). Although
    instances of open and obvious racial discrimination in the workplace still exist,
    intentional discrimination may now take on more subtle forms. In many cases an
    employer’s racial preference will be camouflaged by policies that appear facially
    neutral. That is what the EEOC alleged happened to Ms. Jones. A ban on “all”
    applicants with dreadlocks is about as race-neutral as a ban on “all” applicants with
    dark-colored skin.
    The panel’s conclusion that, as a matter of law, a blanket ban on dreadlocks
    does not violate Title VII’s prohibition on disparate treatment is simply wrong.
    And so is the immutable-trait requirement the panel used to get there. If Title VII
    prohibits an employer from rescinding a job offer because it perceives a female
    applicant’s appearance to be insufficiently feminine (or overly masculine), see
    Price Waterhouse, 
    490 U.S. at 256
    , 
    109 S. Ct. at 1794
    , it must also prohibit an
    employer from rescinding an offer because it perceives a black applicant’s
    appearance to be insufficiently white (or overly black). My colleague Judge
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    William Pryor recently pointed out that a female employee “can state a claim that
    she experienced . . . [sex] discrimination for wearing a ‘male haircut.’” Evans, 850
    F.3d at 1258 (William Pryor, J., concurring). By the same logic, a black employee
    like Ms. Jones should be able to state a claim of race discrimination for wearing
    her hair in dreadlocks—a “black haircut.”
    Surely, the viability of Title VII cannot rest on judges drawing distinctions
    between Afros and dreadlocks. Yet that is what the panel opinion seems to call
    for. The opinion requires courts and litigants to engage in a pseudo-scientific
    analysis of which racial traits occur naturally and which do not. This is not how
    we should be deciding cases of race discrimination.
    There was a time in our nation’s history when a person’s legal status was
    dictated by whether she was white or black. Courts frequently adjudicated the
    physical features that “[n]ature has stampt upon the African and his descendants.”8
    Hudgins v. Wright, 
    11 Va. 134
    , 139 (Va. 1806) (stating that a “woolly head of
    hair” is the “strong[est] [] ingredient in the African constitution” (emphasis
    omitted)). Today we count those decisions among the most shameful in the history
    of our courts. And, of course, Congress’s purpose in passing Title VII was to
    eliminate one of the many stubborn vestiges of that era. Our task, in applying that
    statute today, is to be true to that most important goal. The panel opinion is not.
    8
    See generally Ariela J. Gross, Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the
    Nineteenth-Century South, 
    108 Yale L.J. 109
     (1998).
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    Rather, in holding that certain physical features are immutable traits of the
    different racial groups, this Court legitimizes the very categories that Title VII was
    intended to dismantle.
    I respectfully dissent.
    41