Court Opinion

ID: 9492621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:45:24.541787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:23.625063
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, and dissenting in part, in which BIRCH, BARRETT and MARCUS, Circuit Judges, join:
In its zeal to discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits, the Court today hands down an opinion that will certainly be used by other courts as a model of how not to reason in hostile environment sexual harassment cases brought under Title VII.1 Ten years ago, in Vance v. Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, 863 F.2d 1503 (11th Cir.1989), overruled on other grounds, Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989), this court set forth an analytical framework for deciding when, under the totality of the circumstances, the plaintiffs case of harassment is sufficient to withstand a defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law.2 In reversing the district court, we explained that the district court had erred in granting the motion because it had failed to consider all of the circumstances in context and had instead analyzed each alleged instance of harassment separately. Apparently, Vance has now either been forgotten or is being ignored, because the court today *1258makes exactly the same mistake the district court made in that case ten years ago. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding with respect to the plaintiffs sexual harassment claim brought under Title VII.3
I.
Title VII forbids an employer from “dis-criminat[ing] against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.... ” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (1994). Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination within the meaning of Title VII. See, e.g., Meritor Savs. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 65-67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2404-05, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986). Two types of sexual harassment are prohibited by Title VII: quid pro quo harassment and hostile work environment harassment. See Fleming v. Boeing Co., 120 F.3d 242, 244 (11th Cir.1997). In this appeal, we focus on Red Mendoza’s allegations of hostile work environment sexual harassment.
In order to establish a hostile work environment sexual harassment claim, an employee must show: (1) that the employee belongs to a protected group; (2) that the employee was subject to unwelcome sexual harassment; (3) that the harassment was based upon the employee’s sex; (4) that the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter a “term, condition, or privilege” of employment and create an abusive working environment; and (5) a basis for holding the employer liable. Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 903-05 (11th Cir.1982).
With regard to the fourth element, sufficient severity or pervasiveness, the harassing conduct must create both an objectively hostile or abusive environment — one “that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive” — and a subjectively hostile or abusive environment — one that “the victim ... subjectively perceivefs] ... to be abusive.” Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 21, 114 S.Ct. 367, 370, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993).
In determining whether a plaintiff has met the burden of 'alleging sufficient harassment, the Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed “that the objective severity of harassment should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiffs position, considering ‘all the circumstances.’ ” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 118 S.Ct. 998, 1003, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998) (quoting Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. at 371). If there is one principle of law that stands out in this area, it is that courts must look to the totality of the circumstances to determine whether harassment is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the plaintiffs employment and create an abusive working environment. See Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. at 371; Vinson, 477 U.S. at 69, 106 S.Ct. at 2406; Henson, 682 F.2d at 904. Among other things, courts should look to “the frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. at 371.
The inquiry is both fact intensive, and contextually specific. It “requires careful consideration of the social context in which particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target.” Oncale, 118 S.Ct. at 1003. This means that behavior that might be experienced by an employee as perfectly innocent in one context can, when considered in light of other occurrences and behavior, take on a more incriminating flavor. No act can be considered in isolation. Depending upon the circumstances, an employer’s comment to an employee that he or she “looks good today” could be construed as a friendly compliment, a harmless flirtation, or the kind of sexually offensive verbal assault that is “every bit the arbitrary barrier to sexual equality at the workplace that racial *1259harassment is to racial equality. ’ Henson, 682 F.2d at 902. To put the point yet another way,
[a] professional football player’s working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive ... if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field — even if the same behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach’s secretary (male or female) back at the office. The real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed.
Oncale, 118 S.Ct. at 1003.
II.
We review the district court’s grant of a Rule 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo, considering all the evidence in the light most favorable to Mendoza, the non-moving party. Combs v. Plantation Patterns, 106 F.3d 1519, 1526 (11th Cir.1997), cert. denied, Combs v. Meadowcraft Co., 522 U.S. 1045, 118 S.Ct. 685, 139 L.Ed.2d 632 (1998). A directed verdict is only proper when “[t]he facts and inferences ... ‘so overwhelmingly favor the verdict’ that no reasonable juror could reach a contrary decision.” Bivens Gardens Office Bldg., Inc. v. Barnett Banks, Inc., 140 F.3d 898, 905 (11th Cir.1998) (quoting Hibiscus Assocs. v. Board of Trustees, 50 F.3d 908, 920 (11th Cir.1995)). Thus, to affirm the judgment as a matter of law, we must be convinced that no reasonable juror could have concluded that the conduct complained of constituted actionable sexual harassment in violation of Title VII.
III.
Before Mendoza went to work in the accounting department of Borden’s Miami facility, she spent some time as a cocktail waitress in restaurants, bars, and hotel lounges. Her work environment was often pervaded by foul language and personal insult. Some customers, doubtless after a few libations, attempted to approach Mendoza sexually. On at least one occasion Mendoza was followed home from work, and she was propositioned for dates several times. Throughout it all, Mendoza never made a claim of sexual harassment. At trial she stated that “it was just part of the job.”
In December 1993, Mendoza found work as a temporary employee at Borden. For six months she experienced no job related difficulties that could give rise to a Title VII lawsuit. In fact, Mendoza was so successful in her temporary position that she was eventually hired as a permanent employee and given a pay raise. All of that changed when Dan Page came to work at Borden in 1994. Page was hired as the plant’s “Controller,” the highest ranking position at the Miami facility. From his glass enclosed office, Page kept a watchful eye on the employees in the accounting department, all of whom knew that their job security and employment possibilities rested in his hands.
Page kept a particularly watchful eye on one employee — Red Mendoza. In early 1995, Page began to “constantly” follow Mendoza around the plant, and stare at her in a suggestive manner. Page’s stalking and leering continued for at least four months until Mendoza finally left Borden in April 1995. Mendoza testified that Page “always seemed to be wherever I was. If I was in the lunch room, he was there. If I was at the picnic table outside on a break, he was there.” Page did not limit his physical pursuit of Mendoza to the actual office in which they both worked. He followed her in the plant’s hallways and outside to the facility’s picnic area.
Unfortunately for Page, his physical pursuit did not have its intended effect of piquing Mendoza’s interest, and so he decided to use other methods of beguilement. Perhaps hoping that Mendoza would see his true “animal magnetism,” Page stared at Mendoza’s groin on at least three occa*1260sions and made a loud, sniffing sound. For unexplained reasons, Mendoza failed to become enraptured. In fact, she became rather terrified. But Page remained undaunted. Because Mendoza was not succumbing to his Casanova-like charms, he decided to make physical contact. One day when Mendoza was at the fax machine, Page walked over and moved his hips into hers while grabbing her shoulders and smiling at her. As inexplicable as it may seem, this again failed to capture Mendoza’s favorable attentions.
By now Mendoza had also had enough. She had been stalked, leered at, touched on her hips and shoulders, and her groin area had been made the object of a sniffing ritual so bizarre that only Page could understand its true import. Jenny Volta-petti4 testified that on at least twelve occasions Mendoza told her that she was “being harassed on the job,” and that “it was an immediate supervisor.” Voltapetti described Red Mendoza, a woman who had accepted as “just part of the job” being propositioned and followed home from work during her years as a cocktail waitress, as “extremely distraught” and “very upset.” But what could Mendoza do? With instances of co-worker harassment or even in many situations where one’s superior is doing the harassing, the employee has access to channels of complaint — the head boss or somebody who is superior to the superior. In this situation, however, Page was the head boss. He was the highest ranking employee at the Miami plant. Mendoza nevertheless went to Page to tell him that she had come there “to work, period.” Page’s only response was that he was “getting fired up; too.”
IV.
These are the facts when we view the evidence in the light most favorable to Mendoza, as we are required to do in reviewing a judgment as a matter of law. Reading the majority opinion, however, one would think that we are required to view the facts in the light most favorable to the defendant. The en banc opinion reads like a defense attorney’s classic attack on a plaintiffs (or a prosecutor’s) circumstantial evidence case. Contrary to the Supreme Court’s direction, what the majority does is examine each instance of alleged harassment in isolation and then declare that it alone could not support a finding of liability. Because of this, and here is the rub, all of the evidence added together is likewise insufficient to satisfy the Harris requirement of severity or pervasiveness.
The majority declares that “Page’s statement ‘I’m getting fired up’ and the sniffing sounds are hardly threatening or humiliating.”5 Ante at 1249. With that evidence conveniently disposed of, the *1261court then moves on to scoff at “the one instance of Page brushing his hip against Mendoza’s.” Id. Last, we are told that Page’s constant following and staring at Mendoza in a sexually suggestive manner cannot save the claim, because “[g]iven normal office interaction among employees, following and staring in the manner described by Mendoza are not the type of conduct that can render Mendoza’s claim actionable.... ” Id. at 1250.6
*1262Every defense attorney knows that this is the traditional way to undermine a case built upon circumstantial evidence. You isolate each piece that the other side puts into evidence and then attempt to trivialize it by taking it out of context. The defendant was just driving his car, the defense attorney will argue. So what of the fact that the car was parked outside a bank? People park outside of banks all the time. The bank was being robbed at the time? How could the defendant have known that? He was sitting outside the bank, remember. And so what of the fact that defendant allowed the two men who were robbing the bank into his car, and then drove away at a high rate of speed? People drive at a high rate of speed all the time. Can the members of the jury actually say that they have never broken the speed limit?
The majority’s analysis might be useful for a practicing seminar on defense strategies in employment discrimination cases, but it is certainly not faithful to the Supreme Court’s direction that we look at the “constellation of surrounding circumstances” when analyzing the sufficiency of a plaintiffs allegations. Oncale, 118 S.Ct. at 1003. More than a decade ago in Vance, we addressed a district,court that made the same analytical mistake in a racial harassment case that the- majority makes today. In that case, the district court granted a directed verdict to the employer after examining independently each allegation of harassment, and finding either that the plaintiff had failed to make out a prima facie case for each incident, or that the defendant had provided a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its conduct. After weeding out most of the plaintiffs allegations in this manner, the district court then ruled that the two remaining instances of harassment (a noose was twice hung over the plaintiffs work station) were insufficient to establish a “ ‘persistent, pervasive practice.’ ” Vance, 863 F.2d at 1510 (quoting Vance v. Southern Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 672 F.Supp. 1408, 1413 (M.D.Fla.1987)). We corrected the district court as follows:
The prima facie showing in a hostile environment case is likely to consist of evidence of many or very few acts or statements by the defendant which, taken together, constitute harassment. It is important to recognize that in assessing the credibility and weight of the evidence presented, the jury does not necessarily , examine each alleged incident of harassment in a vacuum. What may appear to be a legitimate justification for a single incident of alleged harassment may look pretextual when viewed in the context of several other related incidents.
[T]he district court examined each individual allegation of discrimination in turn, and found that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case of discrimination only as to the two noose inci-dents_ [But] as we stated in Henson, the severity of the harassment is to be determined by the totality of the circumstances. It was thus incorrect for the district court to require that the plaintiff establish a prima facie case of discrimination as to each individual allegation that the jury could properly consider. A hostile environment claim is a single cause of action rather than a sum total of a number of mutually distinct causes of action to be judged each on its own merits.
Id. at 1510-11 (citations omitted).
The majority today makes the same mistake as the district court did in Vance. By examining each of Mendoza’s allegations of harassment in isolation from one another, the majority concludes that Mendoza does not have enough evidence to reach the jury because each allegation is individually insufficient. But the whole of a hostile environment sexual harassment case will often *1263be greater than the sum of its parts. Incidents that might not seem so disturbing by themselves can take on new meaning in the context of other evidence of discrimination. This case is a perfect example. By itself, it may not seem so significant that Page moved his hip into Mendoza’s while touching her shoulder and smiling at her suggestively. But add to that a suggestive comment (“I’m getting fired up”). Now the hip incident begins to look a little more troubling. By the time we get to the repeated incidents of Page’s staring directly at Mendoza’s groin and making sniffing sounds, we realize that Mendoza’s whole employment experience at Borden’s may have been pervaded by overt and highly offensive acts of sexual aggression. Once we take all the evidence into account, we begin to appreciate that Page’s constant following and staring at Mendoza may have been motivated less by a need to monitor employee work habits, than by a desire to stalk and terrorize an innocent female victim.7 If we looked to the majority for guidance, however, we would miss all of this. We would miss the proverbial forest for the trees because we would fail to see the cumulative meaning of Mendoza’s allegations in context.
The court’s analytical mistakes do not end here. As I read the majority opinion today, it appears that we are telling district courts that they should cast a skeptical eye towards a plaintiffs evidence of pervasive stalking and leering by a supervisor in hostile environment sexual harassment cases. The court writes that “[g]iven normal office interaction among employees, the following and staring in the manner described by Mendoza are not the type of conduct that can render Mendoza’s claim actionable, even with evidence that the following and staring were ‘constant’ and thus ‘frequent’ under the Harris factors.” Ante at 1250. The first problem with this reasoning is that it is circular. The court answers the question, why are the following and staring alleged by Mendoza not the kind of conduct that can support a sexual harassment claim, with a most insightful response: because they “are not the [right] type of conduct.” Id. This is plainly inadequate. The question deserves an answer, not a tautology.
But the real problem runs deeper. The logical inference that one draws from the court’s statement is either: (a) that a plaintiff can never use evidence of following and staring by a supervisor to buttress a claim of sexual harassment; or (b) that in order for evidence of following and staring to be considered probative, it must be something more than “constant.” The answer almost certainly cannot be (a). No court has ever made such a sweeping declaration, defining an entire class of conduct as immune to suspicion. In fact, courts routinely use evidence of following and/or staring to support a finding of sufficient severity or pervasiveness. See Cross v. Alabama Dep’t of Mental Health & Mental Retardation, 49 F.3d 1490, 1495 (11th Cir.1995) (“glaring looks, piercing looks”); Westvaco Corp. v. United Paperworkers Int’l Union, AFL-CIO, 171 F.3d 971, 973 (4th Cir.1999) (“stare at her for periods of *1264ten to twenty minutes”); Stoll v. Runyon, 165 F.3d 1238, 1239 (9th Cir.1999) (“stalked her throughout the postal facility”); Kimzey v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 107 F.3d 568, 571 (8th Cir.1997) (“following her around the store”); Yamaguchi v. United States Dep’t of the Air Force, 109 F.3d 1475, 1478 (9th Cir.1997) (“stare at her during work”); Harris v. L & L Wings, Inc., 132 F.3d 978, 980 (4th Cir.1997) (“followed her around the warehouse”); Hathaway v. Runyon, 132 F.3d 1214, 1217 (8th Cir.1997) (“stared at her with a menacing look”); Hirase-Doi v. U.S. West Communications, Inc., 61 F.3d 777, 780 (10th Cir.1995) (“threatening and intimidating stares”); Steiner v. Showboat Operating Co., 25 F.3d 1459, 1462 (9th Cir.1994) (“stares, glares, snickers, and comments”); Cortes v. Maxus Exploration Co., 977 F.2d 195, 198 (5th Cir.1992) (“Whenever she asked to go to the restroom, [the supervisor] would follow her and wait in the hall until she returned.”).8 Given the Supreme Court’s repeated emphasis on social context, that “[t]he real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships[,]” Oncale, 118 S.Ct at 1003, it would make no sense for us to exclude, ex ante, a whole class of behavior from the realm of what might contribute to a finding of sexual harassment.
The court must, therefore, be saying that in order for evidence of following and staring to be considered probative, it must be something more than what Mendoza alleged. It is difficult to imagine what that “more” might consist of. Mendoza alleged that Page’s following and staring were “constant,” making his conduct appear to be the equivalent of stalking and leering. See supra at n. 7. But apart from the majority’s failure to describe what kind of following and staring would be sufficiently harassing to “count” in an employee’s claim for hostile environment sexual harassment (must the harasser walk closer to the victim? touch her? breathe down her neck?), the court once again substitutes bald assertion for reasoned argument. Why is the following and staring “not the type of conduct that can render Mendoza’s claim actionable”? We do not know. The court has cited no case to support this specific proposition; we must take it on faith that judges, and not juries, are the appropriate persons to be deciding what conduct can and cannot be interpreted as sufficiently offensive and harassing.
At the risk of appearing monotonous, let me repeat that behavior that might be experienced by an employee as perfectly innocent in one context can, when considered in light of other occurrences and behavior, take on a more incriminating flavor. And “[w]hat may appear to be a legitimate justification for a single incident of alleged harassment may look pretextual when viewed in the context of several other related incidents.” Vance, 863 F.2d at 1510. Certainly an employee’s bare allegation that her supervisor was “following” her around the office and that the supervisor often “stared” at her while she was trying to work would not be sufficient to support a claim for harassment. But when that supervisor has been “following and staring” at the employee “constantly” for over four months, stared at the employee’s groin and made sniffing noises, rubbed up against the employee’s hips with his own while touching the employee’s shoulder *1265and smiling suggestively, and made sexually suggestive remarks to the employee, then the “following and staring” begin to look more like “stalking and leering.”
When analyzed cumulatively and in context, Mendoza has certainly presented enough evidence to survive Borden’s Rule 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law. See Allen v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 121 F.3d 642, 647-48 (11th Cir.1997). None of the cases cited by the majority supports the proposition that “the circuits have rejected sexual-harassment claims based on conduct that is as serious or more serious than the conduct at issue in this appeal.” Ante at 1246. If one carefully examines the cases the majority cites, one finds in every single one of them either that the conduct alleged was much less pervasive than the conduct at issue in this case, or that the case is inapposite for other reasons.9 In this case, Mendoza alleges that *1266the harassment she experienced was “constant.” This means that she was stalked and leered at every day for at least four months, in addition to being touched, verbally harassed, and sniffed at in a clearly sexual and disgusting manner. It may well be that at trial, a jury would conclude that Mendoza was not subject to sexual harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to create a hostile work environment. Because the inquiry is so fact intensive and contextually specific, however, Mendoza’s allegations certainly meet the threshold of what is required for the case to reach a jury. See Sparks v. Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc., 830 F.2d 1554, 1561, n. 13 (11th Cir.1987) (“With access to all the evidence, and with the common sense to make credibility determinations, a fact-finder should not find it difficult to distinguish between harassing actions that constitute a violation of Title VII and those ‘ambiguous’ actions which simply may not ‘create an abusive working environment.’ ”).
Other circuits have found conduct that is less egregious than that alleged by Mendoza to be sufficiently severe or pervasive to survive a motion for judgment as a matter of law. See, e.g., Rorie v. United Parcel *1267Serv., Inc., 151 F.3d 757, 761-62 (8th Cir.1998) (plaintiffs allegations that manager patted her on the back, brushed up against her, and told her that she smelled good sufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment);10 Smith v. Norwest Fin. Acceptance, Inc., 129 F.3d 1408, 1412-15 (10th Cir.1997) (allegation of six sexually disparaging remarks sufficient to survive motion for judgment as a matter of law). Today’s opinion appears to require a plaintiff to make a showing that is beyond that required by any other circuit. I say this because the only cases cited approvingly by the majority involved conduct so outrageous that it would shock the conscience of the court: female employees being held down bodily so that other employees could fondle their breasts and legs, Hall v. Gus Constr. Co., 842 F.2d 1010, 1012 (8th Cir.1988); physical and verbal abuse that took place on a daily basis, Dees v. Johnson Controls World Servs., Inc., 168 F.3d 417, 418-19 (11th Cir.1999); and the grabbing of plaintiffs’ bodies, commenting extensively on their physical attributes, showing them pornographic photos and videotapes, offering them money for sex, and speculating on plaintiffs’ sexual prowess, Splunge v. Shoney’s, Inc., 97 F.3d 488, 489 (11th *1268Cir.1996). Those cases certainly presented hostile working environments, but as a matter of precedent we are far beyond the day when a woman must allege multiple rapes before she can make out a case of sexual harassment. See Vinson, 477 U.S. at 60, 106 S.Ct. at 2402 (harassment included forcible rape on several occasions). As the Court made clear in Harris,
Title VII comes into play before the harassing conduct leads to a nervous breakdown. A discriminatorily abusive work environment, even one that does not seriously affect employees’ psychological well-being, can and often will detract from employees’ job performance, discourage employees from remaining on the job, or keep them from advancing in their careers. Moreover, even without regard to these tangible effects, the very fact that the discriminatory conduct was so severe or pervasive that it created a work environment abusive to employees because of their race, gender, religion, or national origin offends Title VII’s broad rule of workplace equality.
Harris, 510 U.S. at 22, 114 S.Ct. at 370-71.
We do not transform Title VII into a workplace “civility code,” Oncale, 118 S.Ct. at 1002, when we condemn conduct less severe than that which shocks our conscience. And when we raise the bar as high as the majority does today, it becomes more likely that we will miss the more subtle forms of sex discrimination that may still infest the workplace, and make it more difficult for women, especially, to participate on terms of equality with their male counterparts.11 The sexist remark, the offensive touch, the repeated request for an intimate outing: all of these may seem merely annoying and relatively harmless in isolation from one another. But add them up; see them in context; and then try to imagine what it must be like for an employee who merely wants to come to work and make a living to have to endure a daily barrage of sexual assault. Then we might begin to understand the power that these “little” sexual offenses, when considered collectively, can have in reproducing a workplace in which women, especially, are often still thought of by their male employers as incompetents and playthings.
Of course not all sexually offensive conduct in the workplace rises to the level of a Title VII violation. See Harris, 510 U.S. at 21, 114 S.Ct. at 370 (excluding from Title VII’s coverage “conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment”). The conduct alleged in this case, however, goes far beyond “ ‘simple teasing,’ offhand comments, and isolated incidents.” Faragher, 118 S.Ct. at 2283 (citations omitted). According to Red Mendoza, her direct supervisor made a daily game out of following and staring at her in a sexually offensive and humiliating *1269manner. He touched her, made sexual comments to her, and sniffed in the direction of her groin in a way that goes beyond the boorish to the patently offensive. This is not just “uncivil.” It may be illegal. At the very least, Mendoza ought to be allowed to present her claim to a jury-
V.
Today’s decision represents a major departure from established sexual harass-, ment law. Out of nowhere, the court has decided that evidence of stalking and leering by a harasser should be given short shrift when used by a plaintiff to support a claim for hostile environment sexual harassment. Moreover, the court’s whole method of analysis is unfaithful to a body of precedent directing us to review the plaintiffs allegations cumulatively.12 I sympathize with what the majority is trying to do today — to “police the baseline for hostile environment claims,” Ante at 1244 (citation omitted), thus enabling district courts to weed out frivolous claims that burden the federal docket. This, however, is not the way to do it. It is Congress that enacted Title VII. When we ignore the congressional mandate, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, we become most vulnerable to the charge that we, as members of the unelected federal judiciary, are usurping the legislative prerogative. It may be the case, as Justice Scalia has observed, that “[a]s a practical matter, [the Court’s holding in Harris ] lets virtually unguided juries decide whether sex-related conduct engaged in (or permitted by) an employer is egregious enough to warrant an award of damages.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 24, 114 S.Ct. at 372 (Scalia, J., concurring). If this is a problem, however, the solution lies with Congress and not the Third Branch.
Accordingly, I would vacate the judgment dismissing Mendoza’s Title VII sexual harassment claim, and remand that claim to the district court for a new trial.

. See Theresa M. Beiner, "The Misuse of Summary Judgment in Hostile Environment Cases,” 34 Wake Forest L.Rev. 71, 119 (1999) (positing that courts often grant motions for summary judgment and for judgment as a matter of law improperly because, in part, "the courts have seen a marked increase in Title VII claims generally, and in harassment claims in particular”).

. The question in Vance was whether the plaintiff's case was sufficient to withstand a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict under Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b). See 863 F.2d at 1505-06. Rule 50(b) has now been amended to substitute the term "judgment as a matter of law” for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict.

. I concur with the judgment of the court in all other respects.

. Jenny Voltapeti is the wife of Mendoza's dentist, and she also manages his office. Her testimony is based upon conversations she had with Mendoza during several of Mendoza’s dental visits.

. It is a mystery to me how the court could find that the sniffing sounds, in particular, "are hardly ... humiliating.” The majority brushes over this piece of evidence lightly, but one wonders what response, if not humiliation mixed with indignation, would be appropriate for a situation in which a woman's supervisor at work feels the need to stare at her groin while making sniffing sounds. Perhaps the court views such conduct as normal and acceptable workplace behavior. See generally Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Defining Deviancy Down,” 62 Am. Scholar 17 (1993). In any event, the only case cited to support the majority’s novel proposition is Long v. Eastfield College, 88 F.3d 300, 309 (5th Cir.1996). In Long, the Fifth Circuit took the entirely unremarkable position that one "offensive joke concerning condoms . .. told in [the plaintiff’s] presence” could not, alone, form the basis of a hostile work environment claim. Id. From that case, the majority draws the conclusion that "the sniffing sounds are hardly threatening or humiliating.” How the court could compare one joke, the subject of which was a prophylactic (and not the plaintiff's genitalia), told, apparently, not to the plaintiff, herself, but only "in [the plaintiff's] presence,” to this case, where Mendoza has alleged multiple instances of Page staring directly at her groin (targeting Mendoza, specifically) and sniffing at her like some beast marking its prey, is beyond me.

. The court's casual assertion that "Mendoza did not present evidence that Page's conduct was 'physically threatening or humiliating' or that the cumulative effect of this conduct 'unreasonably interfered’ with Mendoza's job performance” is bizarre. Ante at 1249. In order for this assertion to be correct, Mendoza would have had to have taken the stand at trial, and then remained completely silent when questioned by her attorney. Remarkably, however, Mendoza did testify when she took the stand, and she presented a wealth of testimonial evidence that Page stalked and leered at her, sniffed at her groin, touched her, and made inappropriate sexual remarks. The inference that a reasonable jury could draw from this evidence is that Mendoza felt threatened and humiliated, and that Page substantially interfered with Mendoza’s job performance.
There are only two possible conclusions that I can draw from the court’s conclusion that Mendoza “did not present [any] evidence.” The first is that in order for a plaintiff to be deemed to have presented "evidence that [the] conduct was 'physically threatening or humiliating’ or that the cumulative effect of [the] conduct 'unreasonably interfered’ with [the plaintiff's] job performance,” the court is now requiring that the plaintiff use "magic words” in her trial testimony, because we will no longer permit either juries, or ourselves, to draw inferences from the testimony presented. If this is the correct interpretation of the majority’s statement, then henceforth, we will be requiring plaintiffs in hostile environment cases to recite the Harris factors, verbatim, in their testimony in order for us to recognize that the harassment was "ffequenft],” "sever[e],” "physically threatening or humiliating,” and an "unreasonablfe] interfere[nce] with an employee’s work performance.” Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. at 371. In order to be adequate, the transcript from Mendoza's trial would have had to read something like this:
Q: What did [Page] do that changed things?
A: The man was constantly watching me and following me around and looking me up and down, whether it was face to face with me or as I would get up from a lunch table or from the picnic table to walk away and to go back to the office. [And I noticed the frequency of this discriminatory conduct; its severity; that it was physically threatening and humiliating; and that it unreasonably interfered with my work performance.]
Q: Okay. Aside from the looking you up and down, what — did he do anything else? A: There was an incident where I was standing at a copy machine direct right next to his office. I was making copies. I felt somebody watching me. I looked directly to my right. He was sitting at a chair in the conference room, which is approximately 20, 25 feet away from me, at a chair at the end of the table. And he looked at me up and down, and stopped in my groin area and made a (indicating) sniffing motion. [And I noticed the frequency of this discriminatory conduct; its severity; that it was physically threatening and humiliating; and that it unreasonably interfered with my work performance.]
This also happened another time. It had to be in March, I had the flu. I went into his office — he was sitting at his computer— to tell him that my doctor wanted me to take time off because of this flu. And he turned around to his right, looked directly at me, up and down, and stopped again in the groin area, made a sniffing motion again, (indicating), like that. [And again, I noticed the frequency of this discriminatory conduct; its severity; that it was physically threatening and humiliating; and that it unreasonably interfered with my work performance.]
The alternative inference that we might draw from the majority's statement is that we should not actually take the majority at its word, and that what the court means to say is that "Mendoza did not present [enough ] evidence that Page's conduct was 'physically threatening or humiliating’ or that the cumulative effect of this conduct 'unreasonably interfered' with Mendoza’s job performance.” This is, likely, the correct interpretation of the majority’s conclusion; but if it is, the court completely fails to explain why Mendoza’s evidence is insufficient. From on high, the majority has determined that female employees should feel no humiliation or anxiety when their bosses sniff in the direction of their groins, touch their hips, and follow them around the office, staring at them in a sexually suggestive manner; but the court never explains why this is the case. That the court feels the need to resort to bald assertion in lieu of providing some justification for its position only bolsters my conclusion that it is *1262a jury (traditionally, the finder of fact) and not the court who should be making these determinations.

. The majority, and Judge Carnes in his concurrence, make much of the fact that Mendoza never actually uses the word “stalking” to describe what Page was doing to her. What Mendoza testified to at trial was that Page "followed” her “constantly.” Webster’s Third defines "follow” as "to go after in pursuit or in an effort to overtake;” and it lists as synonyms the words "pursue,” “chase,” "tag,” "trail,” and "tail.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 883 (1993). "Constantly” is defined as "without variation, deviation, or change,” or "with regular occurrence” (the listed synonyms are "ever,” "always,” and "incessantly”). Id. at 485. The verb-tense form of "stalk” is defined as "to pursue (as game) stealthily and often under cover for the purpose of killing,” and "to pursue or follow in a stealthy, furtive, or persistent manner.” Id. at 2221. Even if Mendoza never used the word "stalk” at trial, she certainly alleged that Page "pursued” her "incessantly,” which is the same in substance as alleging that Page "stalked” her. Mendoza certainly never alleged that Page’s stalking was "for the purpose of killing” her, but given the animal-like connotations of Page's sniffing ritual, she may have alleged that Page pursued her "as game.”

. The majority appears to have gone to some trouble to distinguish these cases. See ante at 1249-51, n. 8. The court’s purported distinction lies in the difference between the severity or pervasiveness of the harassing conduct at issue in the cases I cite, and the severity or pervasiveness of the conduct at issue in this case. But I do not cite these cases for the proposition that courts have found conduct equivalent to that alleged by Mendoza to be sufficiently severe or pervasive to support a hostile environment sexual harassment claim (I cite cases that establish that proposition, infra.); I cite them for the proposition which I state in the text of this opinion, that “courts routinely use evidence of following and/or staring to support a finding of sufficient severity or pervasiveness.” Nothing in the majority’s lengthy commentary discussing these cases undermines that proposition.

. My reading of these cases convinces me that they do not stand for the proposition for which they are cited. Indest v. Freeman Decorating, Inc., 164 F.3d 258, 264 (5th Cir.1999), only involved five sexually related comments that "were no more offensive than sexual jokes regularly told on major network television programs.” But the real trouble is that the court in Indest did not hold that the plaintiff’s allegations were insufficient to establish a hostile environment. Instead, the decision affirmed summary judgment for the defendant because the employer had taken prompt remedial action and so the plaintiff could not establish a basis for the employer’s vicarious liability for the actions of its employee:
[W]e hold that because she promptly complained of [the supervisor's] harassing conduct, and because the company promptly responded ... the district court properly granted judgment as a matter of law to [the defendant employer]. Even if a hostile work environment claim had been stated, which is dubious, [the employer’s] prompt remedial response relieves it of Title VII vicarious liability.
Indest, 164 F.3d at 267. In Quinn v. Green Tree Credit Corp., 159 F.3d 759, 768 (2nd Cir.1998), the plaintiff only alleged two instances of harassment (comment that plaintiff had the "sleekest ass” in the office, and a contact with plaintiff's breasts by some papers that the alleged harasser was holding in his hand), a far cry from Mendoza’s claim of "constant” harassment. The same lack of pervasiveness is evident in Adusumilli v. City of Chicago, 164 F.3d 353, 361 (7th Cir.1998), where the plaintiff alleged "no more than teasing about waving at squad cars, ambiguous comments about bananas, rubber bands, and low-neck tops, staring and attempts to make eye contact, and four isolated incidents in which a co-worker briefly touched [plaintiff's] arm, fingers, or buttocks.” The court in Adusumilli specifically affirmed the district court's exclusion of evidence that would have made the harassment at issue appear more pervasive. The district court struck a statement from the plaintiff’s affidavit that she "was harassed on a near daily basis by [her] co-workers,” because the court found that it was contradicted by the plaintiff’s deposition testimony. Id. at 360. There is a similar lack of pervasiveness in Sprague v. Thorn Americas, Inc., 129 F.3d 1355, 1366 (10th Cir.1997) (four relatively innocuous comments and one attempt to look down plaintiff's dress over a sixteen month period). Galloway v. General Motors Service Parts Operations, 78 F.3d 1164 (7th Cir.1996) is inapposite. That case did not hold that plaintiff's allegations were "insufficient under Harris," ante at 1247, in the sense that the harassment was not sufficiently severe or pervasive (the proposition for which the majority attempts to find support). Rather the court in Galloway went into a long discussion about why the harassing conduct (calling the plaintiff a "sick bitch”) was not gender related at all because the alleged harasser was only calling the plaintiff “crazy” or "whacko,” and thus there could be no liability under Title VII because there was no evidence of differential treatment. Galloway, 78 F.3d at 1167-68. In this case, the court purports to assume that the conduct alleged by Mendoza "is sexual in nature and thus might implicate sex discrimination.” Ante at 1248-49.
The citation to Black v. Zaring Homes, Inc., 104 F.3d 822 (6th Cir.1997), would be effective, were it not for the court’s reliance in that case on the fact that "most of the [allegedly harassing] comments were not directed at plaintiff.” Id. at 826. In the instant case, there is no dispute that Page's harassment was directed specifically toward Mendoza (indeed, Page’s sniffing was apparently directed specifically toward Mendoza's genital region). Kidwai v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 93-1720, 1994 WL 136971 (4th Cir.1994), involved isolated incidents that were not nearly as severe or pervasive as the conduct alleged in this case (stating that plaintiff had a boyfriend; once asking plaintiff if she was in bed with someone; asking plaintiff to meet his mother; once asking plaintiff whether she had a good time on her vacation; asking plaintiff if she would cook for him; and using profanity on one occasion). With regard to Kidwai, it is odd that the court feels the need to resort to *1266an unpublished opinion from the Fourth Circuit, given that citations to such cases are disfavored. 4th Cir. R. 36(c). The holding in Weiss v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 990 F.2d 333 (7th Cir.1993), is on shaky ground because in that case, the court relied heavily on Scott v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 798 F.2d 210 211-214 (7th Cir.1986). The Seventh Circuit has since recognized that its holding in Scott — that to be actionable, harassment must “cause such anxiety and debilitation to the plaintiff that working conditions [are] poisoned” — has been effectively overruled by the Supreme Court's decision in Harris, 510 U.S. at 22, 114 S.Ct. at 370-71. See Saxton v. American Tel. and Tel. Co., 10 F.3d 526, 533-34 (7th Cir.1993).
The two major cases that the majority uses to support its claim that "[w]ere we to conclude that the conduct established by Mendoza was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter her terms or conditions of employment, we would establish a baseline of actionable conduct that is far below that established by other circuits” are Baskerville v. Culligan International Co., 50 F.3d 428 (7th Cir.1995), and Shepherd v. Comptroller of Public Accounts, 168 F.3d 871 (5th Cir.1999), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 120 S.Ct. 395, - L.Ed.2d - (1999). Ante at 1248. Baskerville is not directly on point because that case was a pre-Faragher decision in which the court found that "even if ... [the alleged harasser's] remarks could reasonably be thought to cross the line that separates vulgarity (not actionable) from harassment (potentially actionable), the plaintiff must lose because the company took all reasonable steps to protect her from [the alleged harasser]” and so was not vicariously liable. Baskeiville, 50 F.3d at 431. In note 9 of its opinion, the majority attempts to resuscitate Baskerville by citing Gleason v. Mesirow Financial, Inc., 118 F.3d 1134, 1144 (7th Cir. 1997), in which the court opined that the "specific holding in Baslcerville was that the plaintiffs supervisor had not engaged in actionable sexual harassment....” That may be true, but it does not change the fact that the "holding” in Baskeiville that the harassment was not sufficiently severe or pervasive was, as the Baskerville court, itself, recognized, an "alternative ground for [the] decision.” Baskerville, 50 F.3d at 432.
The only cases that the majority cites with any effectiveness are Shepherd, 168 F.3d at 872 (one comment that the plaintiffs elbows were the same color as her nipples; one comment that the plaintiff had big thighs; touching plaintiffs arm; and attempting to look down dress), and Hopkins v. Baltimore Gas and Elec. Co., 77 F.3d 745, 753 (4th Cir.1996) (alleged harasser "bumped into [plaintiff], positioned a magnifying glass over [the plaintiff's] crotch, flipped his tie over to see its label, gave him a congratulatory kiss in the receiving line at [a] wedding, and stared at him in the bathroom”). In Shepherd, unlike this case, the alleged harasser was a co-worker, and not a supervisor, and thus the plaintiff likely experienced the conduct as less severe because she did not have to worry about complaining about a superior. Hopkins was a pre-Oncale decision that was likely colored by the fact that the harassment was same-sex, male on male. The court found that much of the alleged conduct was "sexually neutral or, at most, ambiguous.” Hopkins, 77 F.3d at 753. Again, the court in this case purports to assume that the conduct alleged by Mendoza "is sexual in nature.” Ante at 1248-49.
In sum, the majority lacks case support for its proposition that conduct like that alleged by Mendoza has been found insufficient "as a matter of law” to meet the Harris requirements of sufficient severity or pervasiveness. Ante at 1253.

. The majority's reading of Rorie seems slightly misleading. In note 10 of the court's opinion, the majority claims that "when all the alleged conduct in [the decision] is accurately listed, [the decision], if anything, highlights] the insufficiency of Mendoza’s evidence.” The only conduct at issue in Rorie is the conduct I list in the text of my opinion: the plaintiff alleged that her manager patted her on the back, brushed up against her, and told her that she smelled good. In note 10 of the court's opinion, the majority attempts to "reveal” the "actual” facts at issue in Rorie when it suggests that, in addition to the facts I list, the court also relied heavily on findings that the manager placed a "telephone call to plaintiff’s home — asking her to go swimming and if she ‘had heard rumors about a coworker's penis’ and stat[ed] that she 'looked better in the UPS uniform than other women.’ ” Ante at 1252-53 n. 10. The court in Rorie, however, did not rely on these "additional” allegations to support its conclusion that plaintiff's allegations of the manager patting her on the back, brushing up against her, and telling her that she smelled good were enough to present a jury question as to hostile environment. The court specifically found that the "additional” allegations that the majority cites today fell outside of the 180 day period within which the plaintiff filed her compliant with the EEOC, and thus could not be considered by the court in any way other than to "provide relevant background to later discriminatory acts.” Rorie, 151 F.3d at 761. The Rorie court wrote:
UPS argues that the only allegations falling within the 180-day period are McFadden's comments about Rorie smelling good, patting her on the back, and brushing up against her. UPS contends that these actions are insufficient to support a hostile environment claim because McFadden was seldom in [the place where Rorie worked].... UPS also contends that Rorie failed to complain of McFadden's conduct. We disagree.
In September 1995, McFadden telephoned Rorie at home. During their conversation, McFadden asked Rorie if she would like to go swimming and whether she had heard the rumors about a co-worker’s penis size. She declined the swimming invitation. During the same conversation, Rorie complained to McFadden about a female co-worker’s attitude toward her. McFadden told her it was because Rorie looked better in the UPS uniform than the other woman....
While we concede that the facts of this case are on the borderline of those sufficient to support a claim of sexual harassment, we cannot say that a supervisor who pats a female employee on the back, brushes up against her, and tells her she smells good does not constitute sexual harassment as a matter of law. Recognizing that the September 1995 conversation falls outside of the 180-day period, we believe that, at the very least, McFadden’s comments suggest that his later behavior presents a jury question as to hostile environment.
Rorie, 151 F.3d at 761-62 (emphasis added). The proposition for which I cite the case, therefore, remains undisputed. The Eighth Circuit has found that a plaintiff who alleged that her manager patted her on the back, brushed up against her, and told her that she smelled good had alleged conduct severe or pervasive enough to create a jury question as to hostile environment. Mendoza's allegations unquestionably go beyond the conduct at issue in Rorie. Therefore, other circuits have found conduct that is less egregious than that alleged by Mendoza to be sufficiently severe or pervasive to survive a motion for judgment as a matter of law.

. We also become more vulnerable to the charge that in deciding whether the “reasonable person” would find alleged instances of workplace harassment to be sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment, we are in fact adopting the perspective of the "reasonable harasser,” and systematically excluding the experiences of the victims of sexual harassment. See Kathryn Abrams, "Gender Discrimination and the Transformation of Workplace Norms,” 42 Vand. L.Rev. 1183, 1203 (1989); Susan Estrich, "Sex at Work,” 43 Stan. L.Rev. 813, 820 (1991); see also, Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 879 (9th Cir.1991) ("a sex-blind reasonable person standard tends to be male-biased and tends to systematically ignore the experiences of women”); Rabidue v. Osceola Refining Co., 805 F.2d 611, 626 (6th Cir.1986) ("[U]nless the outlook of the reasonable woman is adopted, the defendants as well as the courts are permitted to sustain ingrained notions of reasonable behavior fashioned by the offenders.”) (Keith, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This case is a perfect example. Mendoza is certainly not a woman of Victorian sensibilities who was uninitiated in the often boorish ways of working-class employment. Before going to Borden she worked for years as a cocktail waitress, a job that one imagines could not be staffed with those who possess the most delicate of constitutions. If Mendoza found her harassment at Borden to be severe and pervasive, then it is likely that our objective reasonable person, who has probably never had to serve drinks to a gaggle of besotted, leering males, would feel similarly.

. The degree of departure from established precedent is made even more manifest when one observes that this case was not worthy of en banc review in the first place. Under Eleventh Circuit Rule 35-3, en banc consideration "is an extraordinary procedure intended to bring to the attention of the entire court a precedent-setting error of exceptional importance ... [or] a panel opinion that is allegedly in direct conflict with precedent of the Supreme Court or of this circuit.” See also, Fed. R.App. P. 35(a). There was certainly nothing "extraordinary” or "precedent-setting” about the panel opinion in this case. It was a rather routine decision that rested on 'an extremely fact-intensive review. One senses that the court is reaching to draw a line in the sand in hostile environment sexual harassment cases, but it was certainly a mistake for the majority to seize upon this case. There is nothing extraordinary about finding that allegations of pervasive harassment over a four month period are sufficient to make out a claim under Title VII, and so it appears that it is the court’s en banc decision today, and not the panel opinion, that is "in direct conflict with precedent of the Supreme Court [and] of this circuit.”