## Facts

- Paulette L. Barnes, a Black woman, was hired by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a GS-5 administrative assistant to the director of the agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity division.
- Barnes alleged the director promised she would be promoted to GS-7 within 90 days.
- After she began work, Barnes alleged the director repeatedly sought sexual favors, including after-hours invitations, sexual remarks, and suggestions that cooperation in a sexual relationship would improve her employment status.
- Barnes alleged she refused and insisted on a strictly professional relationship.
- Barnes alleged that, after her refusal, the director harassed and belittled her, removed job duties, and ultimately caused her position to be abolished in retaliation.
- The position was restructured as a higher-graded job and later filled by a white woman; Barnes was reassigned at her prior grade.
- Acting on agency advice, Barnes initially filed an administrative EEO complaint framed as race discrimination; the administrative process excluded sex-discrimination evidence and found no race discrimination.

## Issues

1. Whether adverse employment action taken because an employee refused a supervisor’s sexual demands constitutes discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII.
2. Whether an employer may be held liable under Title VII for a supervisor’s use of delegated authority to condition job benefits or continued employment on sexual favors and to punish refusal.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper where the administrative record did not address sex discrimination and the plaintiff alleged facts that, if proven, would establish a Title VII violation.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment for the EPA administrator and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that Title VII can provide relief when a supervisor conditions employment benefits or continued employment on submission to sexual demands and retaliates for refusal.
- The court concluded that Barnes’s allegations stated a prima facie claim of sex discrimination because the asserted condition was imposed on a female employee and not on male employees.
- The court held the employer could be responsible for discriminatory acts by supervisory agents.
- The court determined it was improper to dispose of the case by limiting review to an administrative record that did not consider sex discrimination.

## Legal Principles

- Quid pro quo sexual harassment—conditioning job benefits or continued employment on submission to sexual demands—may constitute discrimination “because of sex” under Title VII.
- A sex-based term of employment exists when an employee’s job status is made contingent on sexual cooperation in a manner not required of employees of the other sex.
- An employer may be liable under Title VII for discriminatory employment actions carried out by supervisors acting as the employer’s agents.
- Summary judgment is inappropriate where a plaintiff alleges facts that, if proven, would establish a Title VII violation and the prior administrative process did not address the relevant discrimination theory.

## Conclusion

The court held that Title VII reaches retaliation for refusing a supervisor’s sexual demands because such conduct can impose sex-based conditions on employment, and it remanded for proceedings allowing Barnes to attempt to prove her allegations against the EPA.


Barnes v. Costle, 561 F.2d 983 (D.C. Cir. 1977)