DECISION AND ORDERINTRODUCTION Plaintiff Constance Fullwood commenced this action alleging discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against her former employer Sodexo and its subsidiary SDH Services, West, LLC in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. §2000e, et seq. (“Title VII”), the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law §290, et seq. (“NYSHRL”), and 42 U.S.C. §1981. ECF No. 1.Currently pending before the Court is Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. ECF No. 44. After considering the moving papers, the record evidence, and the applicable law, the Court grants Defendants’ motion and dismisses Plaintiff’s Complaint in its entirety.FACTUAL BACKGROUNDThe following facts are drawn from the Local Rule 56 Statements of Material Facts and evidence the parties cited, and are read in light most favorable to Plaintiff.If a statement of fact is unsupported by record evidence or is premised entirely upon inadmissible evidence it must be disregarded. If a proffered fact that is supported by admissible evidence is disputed only with inadmissible or irrelevant evidence, the Court will treat that fact as undisputed. See generally, Spiegel v. Schulmann, 604 F.3d 72, 81 (2d Cir. 2010) (“It is well established that…the district court in awarding summary judgment[ ] may rely only on admissible evidence.”).I. The PartiesSDH Services West, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sodexo, Inc. Sodexo offers outsourcing solutions including food services and custodial management services to corporations, health care and long-term care facilities, retirement centers, schools, colleges, and universities. Sodexo provides custodial management services for the University at Buffalo pursuant to a contract executed in August of 2006.Plaintiff is an African American female and a former employee of Sodexo. Plaintiff worked as a Custodial Manager at Sodexo’s University at Buffalo custodial management services account for approximately six months, from February 2, 2015 to August 14, 2015.Sodexo currently employs Brett Chittenden as Director II of Employee Relations Services. During the time period relevant to this lawsuit, Chittenden was the Director of Human Resources.Plaintiff was employed as a Custodial Manager at Sodexo’s custodial management services account with the University. In this capacity, she was responsible for supervising a team of the University’s custodial service employees.Plaintiff reported to Christopher Baugh. Sodexo employs Baugh as an Operations Manager assigned to Sodexo’s custodial management services account with the University. Baugh reports to Michael Walker, who Sodexo employs as the General Manager of the custodial management services account.II. Sodexo PoliciesSodexo maintains an Employee Handbook and a Company Policy Manual that apply uniformly to all employees. The Employee Handbook contains Sodexo policies on equal employment opportunity and non-harassment. The Equal Employment Opportunity and Policy Against Harassment provides that Sodexo is committed to providing and maintaining a workplace without discrimination or harassment. Any employee who engages in harassment or discrimination will be subject to discipline, up to and including termination of employment. The policy also sets forth a reporting structure for employees wishing to report harassment or discrimination: employees are instructed to report it to their manager, their manager’s manager, the next higher level of management, or a Sodexo Human Resources representative. Plaintiff was provided the name for each level of management who could be contacted in the event of a reporting situation and with Human Resources contact information. The Employee Handbook further provides employees with the option to report via its Business Abuse Hotline.Consistent with Sodexo’s Employee Handbook, the Company Policy Manual includes policies on non-harassment and establishes the same reporting structure found in the Employee Handbook.Sodexo’s policies and the reporting procedure are reviewed with employees during their orientation, and are reinforced by training sessions that are periodically given to supervisory personnel on harassment awareness and prevention.Plaintiff had access to the Employee Handbook and the Company Policy Manual during her tenure at Sodexo. In addition to reviewing the Employee Handbook with Sodexo General Manager Walker as part of her orientation, Plaintiff had access to Sodexo’s Intranet, “SodexoNet.” Among other employee tools and information, SodexoNet provides managerial employees access to the Employee Handbook and Company Policy Manual.Plaintiff also received reinforcement trainings from the University and Sodexo. Specifically, Plaintiff completed a University-administered online training course on harassment prevention on March 17, 2015, a Sodexo-administered online training course on March 17, 2015, and a Sodexo-administered online training course on harassment prevention on March 24, 2015.When a complaint of discrimination or harassment is received, a Human Resources Department member is assigned to promptly investigate the complaint. Where an employee of a Sodexo client makes a complaint against a Sodexo employee, or a Sodexo employee has complained about an employee of a Sodexo client, the Human Resources Department may conduct the investigation in conjunction with the appropriate representative of the Sodexo client. It is Sodexo policy to take steps to make sure an employee who claims to have been harassed, discriminated against, or retaliated against does not work with the accused until the matter is resolved. This often involves placing the accused on paid or unpaid leave while the facts are investigated. If an investigation concludes that the policy has been violated, appropriate discipline up to and including termination is imposed.III. Complaints against PlaintiffThroughout Plaintiff’s six-month employment, Sodexo received complaints regarding Plaintiff’s performance and that she harassed University employees and otherwise engaged in inappropriate and unprofessional behavior. On June 8, 2015, the University’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (“EDI Office”) contacted Sodexo and reported that one of its custodial service employees complained that Plaintiff made inappropriate, demeaning, racial, derogatory, and threatening comments to the University employees she supervised.Consistent with Sodexo policy and practice, Plaintiff was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation into the complaints for an initial period of two weeks. Chittenden led the investigation for Sodexo in partnership with the EDI Office. The investigation included interviews with six University employees and Plaintiff. Sodexo and University representatives were present (by telephone or in person) for each interview.The University concluded that Plaintiff’s comments “violate [the University]‘s Discrimination and Harassment policy and could create an unwelcome, unprofessional and hostile work environment for University employees.” Def. Ex. 16, at 8. It further concluded that:Throughout the course of the investigation, several concerns were raised about Plaintiff’s job knowledge, supervisory style, poor time management, and ineffective communication with her staff and other university employees. These factors, coupled with the evidence obtained as a result of the hostile work environment complaint, lead the university to recommend that Plaintiff no longer be assigned to work on any of the University at Buffalo campuses.Id.Then-Human Resources Director Chittenden participated in the interviews with University employees and reviewed the relevant evidence.The witness interviews substantiated that Plaintiff engaged in conversations with employees about the KKK and Jesse Jackson (during which she was said to have used the word “nigger”), called employees “gay,” “retard,” “fat,” “QP,” and “quarter pounder,” referred to employees as “ISIS,” made an inappropriate reference to male genitals, threatened to write employees up or terminate employees, used the word “bitch” in an introductory meeting, made references about being from “the hood,” shared personal information about weight loss surgery, asked an employee to take a photo of her, requested that employees hug her, and videotaped and audiotaped employees without authorization. Def. Ex. 14 at 5. Plaintiff does not deny that the witnesses made these comments, but she denies the alleged misconduct except for a recording of a conversation with Baugh. Pl. Opp’n Stmt., 29.The investigation report concluded that Plaintiff engaged in “a consistent pattern of behavior and conduct that violated Sodexo policy, did not support Sodexo values, did not meet the standards Sodexo expects from managers, and showed poor judgment as a manager.” Def. Ex. 14 at 4. It further stated that Plaintiff’s behavior “created an unfriendly environment for the employees she supervised and created an environment lacking respect and trust.” Id.Based on these misconduct findings, and considering the limited length of service Plaintiff had with Sodexo, Plaintiff was issued a Final Written Warning. Plaintiff also had to review Sodexo policies and complete additional harassment and discrimination trainings.On July 21, 2015, while Plaintiff was still on investigatory leave, Mary Jo Serafini of the University’s Human Resources and Compliance Team contacted Sodexo by e-mail and requested that Plaintiff be removed from Sodexo’s custodial management services account with the University. Serafini explained that the University was making this request based on the recommendation contained in the EDI Office’s Confidential Investigative Summary. In particular, she noted that:[S]everal concerns were raised about Plaintiff’s job knowledge, supervisory style, poor time management, and ineffective communication with her staff and other university employees. These factors, coupled with the evidence obtained as a result of the hostile work environment complaint, lead the university to recommend that Plaintiff no longer be assigned to work on any of the University at Buffalo Campuses.Def. Exs. 16 at 8; 18.1The University retains the right to require Sodexo to remove any supervisory personnel from assignment to the custodial management services account when, in the University’s opinion, the individual is unsuitable to continue on the account. Sodexo honored the University’s request to remove Plaintiff from the account. Consistent with Company policy and practice, on August 6, 2015, Plaintiff was advised that she would no longer be assigned to her duties at the University, but that Sodexo would continue her salary and benefits for six weeks to allow her to apply for other equivalent positions within Sodexo.On August 13, 2015, Plaintiff tendered her resignation. Def. Exs. 4 at 176-77; 6. Plaintiff testified that she did not want to apply for another position at Sodexo. Pl. Ex. 5 at 184.IV. Plaintiff’s ComplaintsOn June 15, 2015, while on leave for complaints University employees made against her, Plaintiff called the Sodexo Human Resources Support Center and made a complaint against Sodexo managers Baugh, Walker, and Kevin Smith. Def. Exs. 1, 29; 14 at 29.During her deposition, Plaintiff admitted that she had not complained of discrimination or harassment before June 15, but she testified that she complained to Settles about inappropriate touching by Baugh on February 27, 2015. Def. Ex. 4 at 155; Pl. Ex. 5 at 197.Upon receiving Plaintiff’s complaints against her managers, Chittenden launched an investigation. Given the nature of the specific allegations, Baugh, like Plaintiff, was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation.The investigation included multiple interviews with Plaintiff, Baugh, Smith, Walker, and 14 other Sodexo managers between June 22 and July 30, 2015.The investigation concluded that Baugh used inappropriate and unprofessional language, including the words “street” and “ghetto” when counseling Plaintiff and referring to her behavior. Def. Ex. 14 at 14. Baugh acknowledged that the term “ghetto” could be offensive to African Americans. Pl. Ex. 3 at 21. Baugh is African American.During the investigation, Baugh explained that after he received complaints from University employees regarding Plaintiff’s behavior, he approached Plaintiff to counsel and explained that her conduct was “street” and “ghetto”. Def. Ex. 14 at 17-18. Baugh explained that his use of these terms was to indicate that Plaintiff’s behavior was unprofessional, and he thought it would “resonate” with her. Id. at 36. In hindsight, he testified, “there should have been a better word, I should have just stuck with unprofessional.” Id. at 20.Although Plaintiff alleges that Baugh called her “too black” and “untrainable,” the investigation indicated that there was no evidence to support that Baugh used those terms. Def. Ex. 14 at 16. Plaintiff testified, “I just feel like maybe, just like they sent the black managers to tell me I was too black and too ghetto, from my white general manager….” Pl. Ex. 5 at 146.Baugh admitted to having a habit of touching employees and co-workers, including touching employees and co-workers on the arm and putting his arms around employees and coworkers during conversation and when providing recognition. Def. Ex. 14 at 15-16. The investigation found no evidence that Baugh physically threatened or sexually harassed Plaintiff or any other employee. Id. at 14-18.The investigation also concluded that Smith used the terminology “ghetto” and “street” when coaching Plaintiff and referring to her performance and behavior, but, as with Baugh, his use of the terms was not racially motivated. Def. Ex. 14 at 19. Smith is African American. He explained that his use of those terms was not related to her race, but had to do with her attitude and approach with her direct reports and co-workers. Def. Ex. 14 at 18. There was also no evidence to substantiate Plaintiff’s allegation that Smith used the terms “too black” or “untrainable” to describe Plaintiff. Id. at 19.The investigation concluded that Walker, in speaking with other Sodexo employees (not Plaintiff), used the terminology “ghetto” and “street” when describing Plaintiff’s behavior with University employees. Def. Ex. 14, at 21. There was no evidence that Walker referenced Plaintiff’s race in conversations with his managers or that he used the terminology “too black” or “untrainable” when referring to Plaintiff. Id. at 20-21. Walker is Caucasian.Baugh, Smith, and Walker were each disciplined for using inappropriate and unprofessional language. Def. Ex. 20. Defendants assert that Chittenden reviewed the investigatory findings as to that individual and considered the individual’s length of service with the company and his/her prior disciplinary record. Def. Exs. 1,
