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/ ↗

Full Text

1,914 chars

Man attracted to men
              Woman attracted to men
              Woman attracted to women
              Man attracted to women
   The discharged employees have one thing in common. It
is not biological sex, attraction to men, or attraction to
women. It is attraction to members of their own sex—in a
word, sexual orientation. And that, we can infer, is the em-
ployer’s real motive.
   In sum, the Court’s textual arguments fail on their own
terms. The Court tries to prove that “it is impossible to dis-
criminate against a person for being homosexual or
transgender without discriminating against that individual
based on sex,” ante, at 9, but as has been shown, it is en-
tirely possible for an employer to do just that. “[H]omosex-
uality and transgender status are distinct concepts from
sex,” ante, at 19, and discrimination because of sexual ori-
entation or transgender status does not inherently or nec-
essarily constitute discrimination because of sex. The
Court’s arguments are squarely contrary to the statutory
text.
   But even if the words of Title VII did not definitively re-
fute the Court’s interpretation, that would not justify the
Court’s refusal to consider alternative interpretations. The
Court’s excuse for ignoring everything other than the bare
statutory text is that the text is unambiguous and therefore
no one can reasonably interpret the text in any way other
than the Court does. Unless the Court has met that high
standard, it has no justification for its blinkered approach.
And to say that the Court’s interpretation is the only possi-
ble reading is indefensible.
                              B
  Although the Court relies solely on the arguments dis-
cussed above, several other arguments figure prominently
in the decisions of the lower courts and in briefs submitted
18             BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY ALITO, J., dissenting

Other Sections in This Document (1015)

Full Text