Cite as: 524 U. S. 775 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
Grossman 776 (noting that courts hold employers "automatically liable" in quid pro quo cases because the "supervisor's actions, in conferring or withholding employment benefits, are deemed as a matter of law to be those of the employer"). Other courts have suggested that vicarious liability is proper because the supervisor acts within the scope of his authority when he makes discriminatory decisions in hiring, firing, promotion, and the like. See, e. g., Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F. 2d 398, 405 (CA7 1990) ("[A] supervisory employee who fires a subordinate is doing the kind of thing that he is authorized to do, and the wrongful intent with which he does it does not carry his behavior so far beyond the orbit of his responsibilities as to excuse the employer" (citing Restatement § 228)). Others have suggested that vicarious liability is appropriate because the supervisor who discriminates in this manner is aided by the agency relation. See, e. g., Nichols v. Frank, 42 F. 3d 503, 514 (CA9 1994). Finally, still other courts have endorsed both of the latter two theories. See, e. g., Harrison, 112 F. 3d, at 1443; Henson, 682 F. 2d, at 910.
The soundness of the results in these cases (and their continuing vitality), in light of basic agency principles, was confirmed by this Court's only discussion to date of standards of employer liability, in Meritor, supra, which involved a claim of discrimination by a supervisor's sexual harassment of a subordinate over an extended period. In affirming the Court of Appeals's holding that a hostile atmosphere resulting from sex discrimination is actionable under Title VII, we also anticipated proceedings on remand by holding agency principles relevant in assigning employer liability and by rejecting three per se rules of liability or immunity. 477 U. S., at 70-72. We observed that the very definition of employer in Title VII, as including an "agent," id., at 72, expressed Congress's intent that courts look to traditional principles of the law of agency in devising standards of employer liability in those instances where liability for the actions of a super-
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