Gloria Bannon and Dr. Jacqueline Burton both sued The University of Chicago, operator of the Argonne National Laboratory where both plaintiffs worked. Ban-non, a woman of Mexican ancestry, claims her supervisor leveled racial epithets at her and repeatedly blocked her attempts to gain promotion from a secretarial position to a supervisory one because of her national origin. Further, Bannon says that after winning promotion in November 2002, she was “frozen out” of opportunities in retaliation for reporting funding irregularities. Bannon began a medical leave in February 2003, and never returned to work. Instead, she initiated this action, claiming she was: (1) denied promotion because of her national origin, (2) subjected to a hostile work environment, and (3) constructively discharged in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Burton, a white female, claims the university violated Title VII by denying her a promotion to senior scientist because of her gender and that she was fired in retaliation for reporting improper billing practices, and not for the reason provided by the school — a failure to report a conflict of interest.
The district court dismissed Bannon’s retaliatory constructive discharge claim on the pleadings and granted summary judgment to the defendant on all other claims. We affirm as to Bannon because: (1) she has no timely failure-to-promote claim; (2) she did not establish that she found her workplace subjectively hostile; (3) her IIED claim is partially preempted and she was not the victim of extreme and outrageous conduct; and (4) Illinois does not recognize a cause of action for retaliatory constructive discharge. With respect to Burton, we affirm because she never applied for the promotion and cannot show that the reason given for her termination was pretextual.
*626 I. BACKGROUND
Because this case is at the summary judgment stage, we summarize the facts as related by Bannon and Burton.
See Perez v. Illinois,
Bannon also contends that Reilly blocked her chances for promotion within the lab. In 1997, the lab posted a vacancy for a more senior project analyst position. Bannon wanted to apply, but Reilly refused to recommend her. Bannon needed his recommendation to be considered for the promotion so she did not apply. The same thing happened when the position became available again in 1998. In 2001, when the position became available for the third time, Reilly did not immediately post it. Instead he told Bannon that, if she took on many of the duties of the project analyst position while continuing to work as his secretary, he would create a new position for her that would be at a slightly higher pay grade than the project analyst job. Bannon agreed to do this. When she reiterated her interest in a promotion to Reilly during this time, he asked her if she “swam across the border or walked across the desert.”
Reilly was unable to create a new position for Bannon, apparently because the human resources department would not authorize it. However, Bannon did receive another raise as compensation for the extra work she had done. In August 2002, after over a year’s delay, Reilly posted the project analyst position. Bannon applied for it in early September 2002, and when she informed Reilly that she had done so, he became very angry, screamed at her, and called her a “stupid Mexican.” Nonetheless, this time Reilly did not block Ban-non’s promotion. In mid-September, Jacqueline Burton, who would be supervising the new project analyst and had been reviewing the applications for the position, told Reilly she wanted Bannon to have the job. At the end of the month, Reilly sent a letter to human resources asking them to give the job to Bannon. 1 Bannon received the promotion in October, and it became effective on November 1, 2002.
Bannon did not report Reilly’s behavior to his superiors, and in spite of all the problems she was having with him, she admits that they socialized together outside of work and that she “did not mind, and even enjoyed” some of these events. She and her husband even went on a weeklong trip with Reilly and his wife in 1998. She also admits sending him a card in October 2002 in which she referred to him as a “great boss” and invited him to lunch.
*627 After her promotion, Burton became Bannon’s immediate supervisor, but Burton was fired by Argonne in January 2003. Lorraine LaFreniere replaced her, and at this point Bannon began having trouble at work again. She was excluded from meetings that she used to participate in and was no longer allowed to organize and coordinate meetings although that had previously been one of her job duties. She felt that she was being “frozen out” of her department after Burton’s termination. She was also deeply upset by two incidents in which she was accused of wrongdoing by Mark Jones, Argonne’s general counsel. In October of 2002, he accused her of falsifying her overtime. Bannon’s lawyers told Jones that any further questions about her overtime should be directed to them, and that was the last she heard about the issue. Then in January 2003, Jones accused her of removing boxes of Argonne property without permission. She told him that she only removed personal items, and nothing more came of this accusation. Bannon was so upset by her treatment at Argonne that she took extended leave in February 2003 and resigned a few months later.
Jacqueline Burton’s claims arise out of two incidents. The first occurred in 2001, when she expressed interest in being promoted to a senior scientist. Reilly, as Burton’s immediate supervisor, was responsible for submitting her application materials to the Associate Lab Director, Harvey Drueker, who would ultimately decide whether to promote her. Reilly did not submit Burton’s materials because, he says, she did not give him everything that was needed to complete her application. Specifically, he says that she did not give him a list of scientific peers who would be willing to write reference letters. Burton does not deny that she failed to submit the list, but contends that it was Reilly’s responsibility to ask for it, and he never did. She asserts that he failed to collect all the information he needed from her because he was biased against her because of her gender. She points out that in September 2002, he told Bannon that Burton was a “dyke” and a “bitch” and that her marriage was a “sham.”
The second incident involves Burton’s termination from Argonne. In 2002, Argonne discovered that Burton’s husband, John Walker, who also worked for Argonne, had been doing consulting work on the side for an Argonne vendor named Air, Soil, & Water (ASW). After investigating, Argonne discovered that Walker had earned a total of $56,000 from ASW while he was still employed by Argonne. Drueker believed that this was a significant conflict of interest for both Burton and Walker and was upset that neither one had reported it to the company. He terminated Burton and Walker on account of this conflict in January 2003. Burton believes that she was really terminated because she expressed concerns about questionable accounting practices to Reilly, and she appealed her termination to both Drueker and an independent review committee. The termination was upheld, and the FBI ultimately investigated Burton’s and Walker’s relationship with ASW. As far as we know this investigation is still ongoing.
II. ANALYSIS
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving parties.
Perez,
*628
Likewise, our review of a district court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings, see Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), is de novo.
Moss v. Martin,
. A. Bannon’s Title VII Claims
1. Failure to Promote
The defendant argues that Bannon has not established a timely failure-to-promote claim. Bannon does not meaningfully respond to this argument, and we think it is dispositive. Bannon had to submit her claim to the EEOC within 300 days of the failure to promote. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1);
Nat’l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan,
However, Bannon also argues that, when she finally applied for the project analyst position in September 2002, Reilly “delayed” her promotion for two months until November. This claim would fall within the limitations period, and a delay in promoting an employee can constitute an adverse employment action,
see Cullom v. Brown,
The record suggests that this is exactly what happened in Bannon’s case. She submitted her application to Burton in early September, and Burton took some time to review it along with the applications of other candidates. In mid-September, Burton informed Reilly that she had selected Bannon for the job. Just nine days later Reilly recommended Bannon for the job to human resources. It then took human resources some time to act on the recommendation, and the company officially awarded the job to Bannon in October, to take effect on the first day of the following month. The only “delay” in this sequence of events that can be attributed to Reilly is the nine days between Burton telling Reilly she had selected Bannon and Reilly’s request to human resources that Bannon be given the job. It is not unreasonable for a supervisor to take nine days to process a promotion application, especially *629 when the supervisor likely has other tasks. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on this claim.
2. Hostile Work Environment
This is the strongest of Bannon’s claims. To succeed with this claim she has to show that her work environment was both subjectively and objectively offensive.
Boumehdi v. Plastag Holdings,
However, Bannon has not established that she considered her workplace to be subjectively offensive. She has admitted that she socialized with Reilly outside of work not once but several times during the same period when she says he was harassing her. Furthermore, one of these social events — a week-long vacation that Bannon and Reilly took together with their spouses — was more prolonged and extensive than typical socializing among office colleagues. Bannon argues that she only socialized with Reilly because she feared his anger if she refused his invitations, but we note that on at least one recent occasion in October 2002 — when she invited him to lunch in the card praising him as a “great boss” — she initiated the contact. She also failed to report Reilly’s behavior to his superiors at Argonne even though the conduct she complains of continued for at least five years.
See Wolf v. Nw. Ind. Symphony Soc’y,
3. Constructive Discharge Claim
Bannon bases her Title VII constructive discharge claim on the same conduct that underlies her hostile work environment claim. But to succeed in a constructive discharge claim, Bannon has to show more than a hostile work environment. She has to show that her working environment was so intolerable that resignation was a fitting response.
See McPherson v. City of Waukegan,
379
*630
F.3d 430, 440 (7th Cir.2004). Because we have decided that Bannon has not made the necessary showing to support her hostile work environment claim, it follows that her constructive discharge claim fails.
See Roney v. Ill. Dep’t of Transp.,
B. Bannon’s State-Law Claims
Bannon also made two state-law claims, intentional infliction of emotional distress and retaliatory constructive discharge. The district court decided, and the defendant now argues, that Bannon’s claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress was preempted by the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA). Whether a state-law tort claim is preempted depends on whether the IHRA “furnish[es] the legal duty that the defendant was alleged to have breached.”
Naeem v. McKesson Drug Co.,
As for Bannon’s final claim, retaliatory constructive discharge, the district court correctly concluded that Illinois law does not recognize such a claim.
See Fisher v. Lexington Health Care, Inc.,
*631 C. Burton’s Title VII and State-Law Claims
1. Failure to Promote
Burton first contends that Reilly stymied her promotion on account of her gender when he failed to ask her for her references, thus ensuring that her application for promotion would be incomplete. Burton attempts to prove this claim under the indirect method. Therefore, she must show that she is a member of a protected class, was qualified for the promotion, was denied the promotion, and that similarly situated employees outside the protected class were treated more favorably.
Perez,
2. Retaliatory Discharge
Burton’s claim that she was discharged in retaliation for informing Reilly about questionable accounting practices is also without merit. To succeed on this claim, which is brought under Illinois law, Burton must show that she was discharged in retaliation for her activities and that the discharge violates public policy.
Hartlein v. Ill. Power Co.,
In addition, Burton has presented no evidence to show that Drucker knew that she had questioned Reilly about accounting practices when he made the initial decision to fire her. She makes a halfhearted attempt to suggest that Reilly was the real decision-maker, in contradiction to what both Reilly and Drucker said in their affidavits, but she has not presented sufficient evidence to support this allegation.
III. CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, we Affirm the judgment of the district court.
Notes
. Although the defendant produced a copy of this letter dated September 27, 2002, Bannon disputes whether it was ever sent. However, she has presented no evidence showing that it was not sent on the same day that it was dated.
. The parties dispute whether Bannon filed her EEOC charge on July 14, 2003 or August 12, 2003. It ultimately makes no difference to the resolution of Bannon's claims, so we give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she filed her charge on July 14.
. In her reply brief, Burton also argues that Argonne’s stated reason for her discharge was pretextual because in 1999 (three years before Argonne investigated Burton's conflict) Drucker told her that there was no need to report conflicts involving Argonne's partners in a special program called QuickSite. Burton says that ASW was a QuickSite partner, and thus it was disingenuous for Drucker to fire her for not reporting a conflict with ASW when he had already told her that conflicts with QuickSite partners like ASW did not have to be reported. This argument is waived
*632
because it was not presented in Burton’s opening brief.
See United States v. Dabney,