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524US2

Unit: $U99

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BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, INC. v. ELLERTH

Opinion of the Court

employment decision itself constitutes a change in the terms
and conditions of employment that is actionable under Title
VII. For any sexual harassment preceding the employment
decision to be actionable, however, the conduct must be se-
vere or pervasive. Because Ellerth’s claim involves only un-
fulﬁlled threats, it should be categorized as a hostile work
environment claim which requires a showing of severe or
pervasive conduct. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore
Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75, 81 (1998); Harris v. Forklift Sys-
tems, Inc., 510 U. S. 17, 21 (1993). For purposes of this case,
we accept the District Court’s ﬁnding that the alleged con-
duct was severe or pervasive. See supra, at 749. The case
before us involves numerous alleged threats, and we express
no opinion as to whether a single unfulﬁlled threat is sufﬁ-
cient to constitute discrimination in the terms or conditions
of employment.

When we assume discrimination can be proved, however,
the factors we discuss below, and not the categories quid pro
quo and hostile work environment, will be controlling on the
issue of vicarious liability. That is the question we must
resolve.

III

We must decide, then, whether an employer has vicarious
liability when a supervisor creates a hostile work environ-
ment by making explicit threats to alter a subordinate’s
terms or conditions of employment, based on sex, but does
not fulﬁll the threat. We turn to principles of agency law,
for the term “employer” is deﬁned under Title VII to include
“agents.”
42 U. S. C. § 2000e(b); see Meritor, supra, at 72.
In express terms, Congress has directed federal courts to
interpret Title VII based on agency principles. Given such
an explicit instruction, we conclude a uniform and predict-
able standard must be established as a matter of federal law.
We rely “on the general common law of agency, rather than
on the law of any particular State, to give meaning to these