Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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with their ordinary public meaning at the time of their enactment re-
solves these cases. Pp. 4–12.
(1) The parties concede that the term “sex” in 1964 referred to the
biological distinctions between male and female. And “the ordinary
meaning of ‘because of’ is ‘by reason of’ or ‘on account of,’ ” University
of Tex. Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 570 U. S. 338, 350.
That term incorporates the but-for causation standard, id., at 346, 360,
which, for Title VII, means that a defendant cannot avoid liability just
by citing some other factor that contributed to its challenged employ-
ment action. The term “discriminate” meant “[t]o make a difference in
treatment or favor (of one as compared with others).” Webster’s New
International Dictionary 745. In so-called “disparate treatment”
cases, this Court has held that the difference in treatment based on
sex must be intentional. See, e.g., Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust,
487 U. S. 977, 986. And the statute’s repeated use of the term “indi-
vidual” means that the focus is on “[a] particular being as distin-
guished from a class.” Webster’s New International Dictionary, at
1267. Pp. 4–9.
(2) These terms generate the following rule: An employer violates
Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in
part on sex. It makes no difference if other factors besides the plain-
tiff’s sex contributed to the decision or that the employer treated
women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. A
statutory violation occurs if an employer intentionally relies in part on
an individual employee’s sex when deciding to discharge the employee.
Because discrimination on the basis of homosexuality or transgender
status requires an employer to intentionally treat individual employ-
ees differently because of their sex, an employer who intentionally pe-
nalizes an employee for being homosexual or transgender also violates
Title VII. There is no escaping the role intent plays: Just as sex is
necessarily a but-for cause when an employer discriminates against
homosexual or transgender employees, an employer who discriminates
on these grounds inescapably intends to rely on sex in its decisionmak-
ing. Pp. 9–12.
(b) Three leading precedents confirm what the statute’s plain terms
suggest. In Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U. S. 542, a com-
pany was held to have violated Title VII by refusing to hire women
with young children, despite the fact that the discrimination also de-
pended on being a parent of young children and the fact that the com-
pany favored hiring women over men. In Los Angeles Dept. of Water
and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702, an employer’s policy of requiring
women to make larger pension fund contributions than men because
women tend to live longer was held to violate Title VII, notwithstand-
ing the policy’s evenhandedness between men and women as groups.
Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020) 3 Syllabus

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