Vance v. Ball State Univ.
The Supreme Court ruled that a coworker only counts as a "supervisor" for workplace harassment lawsuits if the employer has given that person power to hire, fire, promote, demote, transfer, or discipline the victim.
The decision means employees harassed by coworkers who merely direct their daily tasks — without that formal power — can only win by proving the company itself was careless, a stricter standard than if the harasser had been a true supervisor.
“Tangible employment actions fall within the special province of the supervisor.”
Explaining why only employees who can take tangible actions count as supervisors.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment to the university, the Seventh Circuit affirmed, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear Vance's appeal to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Maetta Vance, an African-American catering employee at Ball State University, said a coworker, Saundra Davis, created a racially hostile work environment by glaring, slamming pots, and intimidating her. Davis could not hire, fire, promote, demote, transfer, or discipline Vance, but she sometimes directed kitchen tasks. Vance sued the university, arguing it should be automatically responsible for Davis's conduct because Davis was her supervisor.
The question before the Court
When a coworker harasses an employee at work, how much power does that coworker need to have before the company can be automatically blamed for it?
The Court's answer
The Court adopted a clear-cut test: an employee counts as a "supervisor" only if the employer has given that person the power to take tangible employment actions against the victim — meaning the authority to hire, fire, promote, demote, transfer, reassign with significantly different duties, or make decisions that meaningfully change someone's pay or benefits. Employees who merely direct a coworker's daily tasks, without that formal power, are legally coworkers, not supervisors, no matter how much day-to-day authority they wield.
Because Saundra Davis could not hire, fire, promote, demote, transfer, or discipline Maetta Vance, she was not Vance's supervisor under this test. That meant Ball State could only be held responsible if Vance proved the university was negligent in letting the harassment happen — a standard the lower courts had already found Vance could not meet.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Workers harassed by team leads, shift leaders, or lead drivers who assign tasks but can't hire or fire will have a harder time holding their employer automatically responsible; they must instead prove the company was negligent. Employers gain more predictability about which employees' misconduct can trigger automatic liability.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision, not a remand for further factfinding on the legal standard itself; the Seventh Circuit's judgment in favor of the university stands. Going forward, courts nationwide must use the tangible-employment-action test to decide who counts as a supervisor in Title VII harassment cases, resolving the circuit split that led to review.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not eliminate employer liability for harassment by powerful coworkers who lack hiring/firing authority; such victims can still sue under a negligence theory. The Court also did not decide whether Davis's conduct was severe enough to count as illegal harassment at all, since that issue wasn't before it.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas said he still believes the Court's earlier Ellerth and Faragher decisions were wrongly decided, but joined the majority anyway because its tangible-employment-action rule is the narrowest and most workable approach available for deciding when employers are automatically liable.
Dissent — Justice Ginsburg
Justice Ginsburg argued the majority's narrow definition ignores workplace realities, since employees who control others' daily assignments and schedules can just as effectively enable harassment as those who can fire or promote. She would have adopted the EEOC's broader test, covering anyone with authority to direct an employee's daily work, and urged Congress to overturn the ruling as it had after past rulings she viewed as wrong.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court built on its earlier Ellerth/Faragher framework, which makes an employer automatically liable for a 'supervisor's' harassment that results in a tangible employment action (a real change like firing or demotion), but only liable for negligence when a mere coworker is the harasser.
- Because prior cases never had to decide exactly how much authority makes someone a 'supervisor,' the Court looked at how that framework itself was structured, finding it assumed one clear-cut category: employees who can take tangible employment actions.
- The Court rejected the EEOC's broader test, which would have counted anyone who directs a coworker's daily tasks as a supervisor, reasoning that such a vague standard would be hard for judges to apply before trial and could confuse juries with two different legal paths.
- Applying its clear-authority rule, the Court found no evidence that Ball State gave Davis power to hire, fire, promote, demote, transfer, or discipline Vance, so Davis was a coworker, not a supervisor, under Title VII.
- The Court noted that employees harassed by powerful-but-not-formally-supervisory coworkers are not left unprotected, because they can still win by showing the employer was negligent in letting the harassment happen.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth (524 U. S. 742)
The Court builds directly on Ellerth's framework rather than changing it, resolving a question it had left open.
Reaffirms Faragher v. Boca Raton (524 U. S. 775)
The Court relies on Faragher's liability framework while clarifying who counts as a supervisor under it.