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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their transgender status. 884 F. 3d 560 (2018). During the
course of the proceedings in these long-running disputes,
both Mr. Zarda and Ms. Stephens have passed away. But
their estates continue to press their causes for the benefit
of their heirs. And we granted certiorari in these matters
to resolve at last the disagreement among the courts of ap-
peals over the scope of Title VII’s protections for homosex-
ual and transgender persons. 587 U. S. ___ (2019).
                              II
   This Court normally interprets a statute in accord with
the ordinary public meaning of its terms at the time of its
enactment. After all, only the words on the page constitute
the law adopted by Congress and approved by the Presi-
dent. If judges could add to, remodel, update, or detract
from old statutory terms inspired only by extratextual
sources and our own imaginations, we would risk amending
statutes outside the legislative process reserved for the peo-
ple’s representatives. And we would deny the people the
right to continue relying on the original meaning of the law
they have counted on to settle their rights and obligations.
See New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira, 586 U. S. ___, ___–___
(2019) (slip op., at 6–7).
   With this in mind, our task is clear. We must determine
the ordinary public meaning of Title VII’s command that it
is “unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or
to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate
against any individual with respect to his compensation,
terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of
such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national
origin.” §2000e–2(a)(1). To do so, we orient ourselves to the
time of the statute’s adoption, here 1964, and begin by ex-
amining the key statutory terms in turn before assessing
their impact on the cases at hand and then confirming our
work against this Court’s precedents.
                  Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020)              5 Opinion of the Court

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