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524US2

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BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ELLERTH

Thomas, J., dissenting

reasonable care should have known, about the hostile work
environment and failed to take remedial action.3

Sexual harassment is simply not something that employers
can wholly prevent without taking extraordinary meas-
ures—constant video and audio surveillance, for example—
that would revolutionize the workplace in a manner incom-
patible with a free society. See 123 F. 3d, at 513 (Posner,
C. J., dissenting).
Indeed, such measures could not even de-
tect incidents of harassment such as the comments Slowik
allegedly made to respondent in a hotel bar. The most that
employers can be charged with, therefore, is a duty to act
reasonably under the circumstances. As one court recog-
nized in addressing an early racial harassment claim:

“It may not always be within an employer’s power to
guarantee an environment free from all bigotry. . . . [H]e
can let it be known, however, that racial harassment will
not be tolerated, and he can take all reasonable meas-
ures to enforce this policy. . . . But once an employer has
in good faith taken those measures which are both feasi-
ble and reasonable under the circumstances to combat
the offensive conduct we do not think he can be charged
with discriminating on the basis of race.” DeGrace v.
Rumsfeld, 614 F. 2d 796, 805 (1980).

3 I agree with the Court that the doctrine of quid pro quo sexual harass-
ment is irrelevant to the issue of an employer’s vicarious liability.
I do
not, however, agree that the distinction between hostile work environment
and quid pro quo sexual harassment is relevant “when there is a threshold
question whether a plaintiff can prove discrimination in violation of Title
VII.” Ante, at 753. A supervisor’s threat to take adverse action against
an employee who refuses his sexual demands, if never carried out, may
create a hostile work environment, but that is all. Cases involving such
threats, without more, should therefore be analyzed as hostile work envi-
If, on the other hand, the supervisor carries out his
ronment cases only.
threat and causes the plaintiff a job detriment, the plaintiff may have a
disparate treatment claim under Title VII. See E. Scalia, The Strange
Career of Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment, 21 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Policy
307, 309–314 (1998).