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Page Number: 29

26 

VANCE v. BALL STATE UNIV. 

Opinion of the Court 

a  hostile  work  environment.    And  even  if  an  employer
concentrates  all  decisionmaking  authority  in  a  few  indi­
viduals,  it  likely  will  not  isolate  itself  from  heightened 
liability under Faragher and Ellerth.  If an employer does 
attempt to confine decisionmaking power to a small num­
ber  of  individuals,  those  individuals  will  have  a  limited 
ability  to  exercise  independent  discretion  when  making 
decisions  and  will  likely  rely  on  other  workers  who  actu- 
ally  interact  with  the  affected  employee.  Cf.  Rhodes  v. 
Illinois  Dept.  of  Transp.,  359  F. 3d  498,  509  (CA7  2004) 
(Rovner,  J.,  concurring  in  part  and  concurring  in  judg­
ment)  (“Although  they  did  not  have  the  power  to  take 
formal  employment  actions  vis-à-vis  [the  victim],  [the
harassers]  necessarily  must  have  had  substantial  input 
into  those  decisions,  as  they  would  have  been  the  people
most familiar with her work—certainly more familiar with 
it  than  the  off-site  Department  Administrative  Services 
Manager”).  Under those circumstances, the employer may 
be  held  to  have  effectively  delegated  the  power  to  take 
tangible  employment  actions  to  the  employees  on  whose
recommendations it relies.  See Ellerth, 524 U. S., at 762. 

IV 

Importuning  Congress,  post,  at  21–22,  the  dissent 
suggests  that  the  standard  we  adopt  today  would  cause 
the plaintiffs to lose in a handful of cases involving shock­
ing allegations of harassment, see post, at 9–12.  However, 
the dissent does not mention why the plaintiffs would lose 
in  those  cases.    It  is  not  clear  in  any  of  those  examples 
that  the  legal  outcome  hinges  on  the  definition  of  “super­
visor.”  For  example,  Clara  Whitten  ultimately  did  not 
prevail on her discrimination claims—notwithstanding the 
fact  that  the  Fourth  Circuit  adopted  the  approach  advo­
cated by the dissent, see Whitten v. Fred’s, Inc., 601 F. 3d 
231,  243–247  (2010)—because  the  District  Court  subse­
quently  dismissed  her claims  for  lack  of  jurisdiction.    See