whether [the plaintiff] has actually made out a prima facie case of retaliation.” Id. First, the plaintiff contends that she engaged in protected activity based on two letters: one in November 2006 to Chance, and copied to Secretary Michael Leavitt, and another in June 2007 to James Hubbard, the EEO investigator. Pl.’s Opp’n at 19. “The statutory prohibition against discrimination is very broad, protecting an employee who ‘participate[s] in any manner’ in a Title VII proceeding.” Barnes v. Small, 840 F.2d 972, 976 (D.C.Cir.1988) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a)). To that end, letters can constitute protected activity. See Paquin v. Fed. Nat’l Mortgage Ass’n, 119 F.3d 23, 31 (D.C.Cir.1997) (letter claiming discrimination based on age is a protected activity); Singletary, 351 F.3d at 524 (<HOLDING>). To qualify, however, the letters must allege
holding that letters sent to deciding official regarding the status of an administrative proceeding constitute a protected activity holding that a sixmonth gap between the protected activity and the employees termination was insufficient to infer that the protected activity was a contributing factor holding that informal complaints to superiors about discrimination constitute protected activity holding that the fact that employer had knowledge of the employees protected activity was not sufficient to establish a prima facie case of retaliation where the timing of the discharge was not proximate to the protected activity holding that an attorneys letters constitute protected conduct under title vii