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Page Number: 52.0

18 

VANCE v. BALL STATE UNIV. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

Faragher  is  illustrative.  After  enduring  unrelenting
harassment,  Faragher  reported  Terry’s  and  Silverman’s
conduct  informally  to  Robert  Gordon,  another  immediate 
supervisor.  524  U. S.,  at  782–783.    But  the  lifeguards
were  “completely  isolated  from  the  City’s  higher  manage-
ment,”  and  it  did  not  occur  to  Faragher  to  pursue  the 
matter  with  higher  ranking  city  officials  distant  from  the 
beach.  Id., at 783, 808 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Applying a negligence standard, the Eleventh Circuit held
that,  despite  the  pervasiveness  of  the  harassment,  and
despite  Gordon’s  awareness  of  it,  Boca  Raton  lacked  con-
structive  notice  and  therefore  escaped  liability.    Id.,  at 
784–785.  Under the vicarious liability standard, however, 
Boca Raton could not make out the affirmative defense, for 
it  had  failed  to  disseminate  a  policy  against  sexual  har-
assment.  Id., at 808–809. 

On  top  of  the  substantive  differences  in  the  negligence
and  vicarious  liability  standards,  harassment  victims, 
under  today’s  decision,  are  saddled  with  the  burden  of 
proving  the  employer’s  negligence  whenever  the  harasser 
lacks  the  power  to  take  tangible  employment  actions. 
Faragher  and  Ellerth,  by  contrast,  placed  the  burden
squarely  on  the  employer  to  make  out  the  affirmative
defense.  See Suders, 542 U. S., at 146 (citing Ellerth, 524 
U. S., at 765; Faragher, 524 U. S., at 807).  This allocation 
of  the  burden  was  both  sensible  and  deliberate:  An  em-
ployer has superior access to evidence bearing on whether 
it acted reasonably to prevent or correct harassing behav-
ior, and superior resources to marshal that evidence.  See 
542  U. S.,  at  146,  n. 7  (“The  employer  is  in  the  best  posi-
tion to know what remedial procedures it offers to employ-
ees and how those procedures operate.”). 

Faced with a steeper substantive and procedural hill to
climb,  victims  like  Yasharay  Mack,  Donna  Rhodes,  Clara 
Whitten,  and  Monika  Starke  likely  will  find  it  impossible
to obtain redress.  We can expect that, as a consequence of