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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And in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75, a
male plaintiff alleged a triable Title VII claim for sexual harassment
by co-workers who were members of the same sex.
   The lessons these cases hold are instructive here. First, it is irrele-
vant what an employer might call its discriminatory practice, how oth-
ers might label it, or what else might motivate it. In Manhart, the
employer might have called its rule a “life expectancy” adjustment, and
in Phillips, the employer could have accurately spoken of its policy as
one based on “motherhood.” But such labels and additional intentions
or motivations did not make a difference there, and they cannot make
a difference here. When an employer fires an employee for being ho-
mosexual or transgender, it necessarily intentionally discriminates
against that individual in part because of sex. Second, the plaintiff’s
sex need not be the sole or primary cause of the employer’s adverse
action. In Phillips, Manhart, and Oncale, the employer easily could
have pointed to some other, nonprotected trait and insisted it was the
more important factor in the adverse employment outcome. Here, too,
it is of no significance if another factor, such as the plaintiff’s attrac-
tion to the same sex or presentation as a different sex from the one
assigned at birth, might also be at work, or even play a more important
role in the employer’s decision. Finally, an employer cannot escape
liability by demonstrating that it treats males and females comparably
as groups. Manhart is instructive here. An employer who intention-
ally fires an individual homosexual or transgender employee in part
because of that individual’s sex violates the law even if the employer
is willing to subject all male and female homosexual or transgender
employees to the same rule. Pp. 12–15.
   (c) The employers do not dispute that they fired their employees for
being homosexual or transgender. Rather, they contend that even in-
tentional discrimination against employees based on their homosexual
or transgender status is not a basis for Title VII liability. But their
statutory text arguments have already been rejected by this Court’s
precedents. And none of their other contentions about what they think
the law was meant to do, or should do, allow for ignoring the law as it
is. Pp. 15–33.
      (1) The employers assert that it should make a difference that
plaintiffs would likely respond in conversation that they were fired for
being gay or transgender and not because of sex. But conversational
conventions do not control Title VII’s legal analysis, which asks simply
whether sex is a but-for cause. Nor is it a defense to insist that inten-
tional discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status is
not intentional discrimination based on sex. An employer who discrim-
inates against homosexual or transgender employees necessarily and
intentionally applies sex-based rules. Nor does it make a difference
4                   BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY Syllabus
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