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Page Number: 17.0

14 

VANCE v. BALL STATE UNIV. 

Opinion of the Court 

move, reduce in grade, band, or pay, or take other discipli­
nary  action  against  such  employees  or,  with  respect  to
filling positions, to make selections for appointments from
properly ranked and certified candidates for promotion or 
from  any  other  appropriate  source”);  §9701.212(b)(4)  (de­
fining  “supervisory  work”  as  that  which  “may  involve
hiring  or  selecting  employees,  assigning  work,  managing 
performance,  recognizing  and  rewarding  employees,  and 
other associated duties”).

In  sum,  the  term  “supervisor”  has  varying  meanings 
both  in  colloquial  usage  and  in  the  law.    And  for  this 
reason,  petitioner’s  argument,  taken  on  its  own  terms,  is 
unsuccessful. 

More  important,  petitioner  is  misguided  in  suggesting 
that we should approach the question presented here as if 
“supervisor”  were  a  statutory  term.    “Supervisor”  is  not  a
term used by Congress in Title VII.  Rather, the term was 
adopted  by  this  Court  in  Ellerth  and  Faragher  as  a  label 
for  the  class  of  employees  whose  misconduct  may  give
rise  to  vicarious  employer  liability.  Accordingly,  the  way 
to  understand  the  meaning  of  the  term  “supervisor”  for 
present  purposes  is  to  consider  the  interpretation  that
best  fits  within  the  highly  structured  framework  that
those cases adopted. 

B 
  In considering Ellerth and Faragher, we are met at the 
outset  with  petitioner’s  contention  that  at  least  some  of
the alleged harassers in those cases, whom we treated as
supervisors,  lacked  the  authority  that  the  Seventh  Cir­
cuit’s  definition  demands.    This  argument  misreads  our  
decisions.
  In  Ellerth,  it  was  clear  that  the  alleged  harasser  was  a 
supervisor  under  any  definition  of  the  term:  He  hired  his 
victim,  and  he  promoted  her  (subject  only  to  the  minis- 
terial  approval  of  his  supervisor,  who  merely  signed  the