770
Thomas, J., dissenting
reasonable care should have known, about the hostile work environment and failed to take remedial action.3
Sexual harassment is simply not something that employers can wholly prevent without taking extraordinary measures—constant video and audio surveillance, for example— that would revolutionize the workplace in a manner incompatible with a free society. See 123 F. 3d, at 513 (Posner, C. J., dissenting). Indeed, such measures could not even detect incidents of harassment such as the comments Slowik allegedly made to respondent in a hotel bar. The most that employers can be charged with, therefore, is a duty to act reasonably under the circumstances. As one court recognized in addressing an early racial harassment claim:
"It may not always be within an employer's power to guarantee an environment free from all bigotry. . . . [H]e can let it be known, however, that racial harassment will not be tolerated, and he can take all reasonable measures to enforce this policy. . . . But once an employer has in good faith taken those measures which are both feasible and reasonable under the circumstances to combat the offensive conduct we do not think he can be charged with discriminating on the basis of race." DeGrace v. Rumsfeld, 614 F. 2d 796, 805 (1980).
3 I agree with the Court that the doctrine of quid pro quo sexual harassment is irrelevant to the issue of an employer's vicarious liability. I do not, however, agree that the distinction between hostile work environment and quid pro quo sexual harassment is relevant "when there is a threshold question whether a plaintiff can prove discrimination in violation of Title VII." Ante, at 753. A supervisor's threat to take adverse action against an employee who refuses his sexual demands, if never carried out, may create a hostile work environment, but that is all. Cases involving such threats, without more, should therefore be analyzed as hostile work environment cases only. If, on the other hand, the supervisor carries out his threat and causes the plaintiff a job detriment, the plaintiff may have a disparate treatment claim under Title VII. See E. Scalia, The Strange Career of Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment, 21 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Policy 307, 309-314 (1998).
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