Clark County School Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 4 (2001)

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Cite as: 532 U. S. 268 (2001)

Per Curiam

criminatory 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.' " Faragher v. Boca Raton, supra, at 787-788 (quoting Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U. S. 17, 23 (1993)). Hence, "[a] recurring point in [our] opinions is that simple teasing, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount to discriminatory changes in the 'terms and conditions of employment.' " Faragher v. Boca Raton, supra, at 788 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

No reasonable person could have believed that the single incident recounted above violated Title VII's standard. The ordinary terms and conditions of respondent's job required her to review the sexually explicit statement in the course of screening job applicants. Her co-workers who participated in the hiring process were subject to the same requirement, and indeed, in the District Court respondent "con-ceded that it did not bother or upset her" to read the statement in the file. App. to Pet. for Cert. 15 (District Court opinion). Her supervisor's comment, made at a meeting to review the application, that he did not know what the statement meant; her co-worker's responding comment; and the chuckling of both are at worst an "isolated inciden[t]" that cannot remotely be considered "extremely serious," as our cases require, Faragher v. Boca Raton, supra, at 788. The holding of the Court of Appeals to the contrary must be reversed.

Besides claiming that she was punished for complaining to petitioner's personnel about the alleged sexual harassment, respondent also claimed that she was punished for filing charges against petitioner with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and for filing the present suit. Respondent filed her lawsuit on April 1, 1997; on April 10, 1997, respond-ent's supervisor, Assistant Superintendent Rice, "mentioned

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