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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Long before Title VII was adopted, many pioneering state
and federal laws had used language substantively indistin-
guishable from Title VII’s critical phrase, “discrimination
because of sex.” For example, the California Constitution
of 1879 stipulated that no one, “on account of sex, [could] be
disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful
business, vocation, or profession.” Art. XX, §18 (emphasis
added). It also prohibited a student’s exclusion from any
state university department “on account of sex.” Art. IX,
§9; accord, Mont. Const., Art. XI, §9 (1889).
    Wyoming’s first Constitution proclaimed broadly that
“[b]oth male and female citizens of this state shall equally
enjoy all civil, political and religious rights and privileges,”
Art. VI, §1 (1890), and then provided specifically that “[i]n
none of the public schools . . . shall distinction or discrimi-
nation be made on account of sex,” Art. VII, §10 (emphasis
added); see also §16 (the “university shall be equally open
to students of both sexes”). Washington’s Constitution like-
wise required “ample provision for the education of all chil-
dren . . . without distinction or preference on account of . . .
sex.” Art. IX, §1 (1889) (emphasis added).
    The Constitution of Utah, adopted in 1895, provided that
the right to vote and hold public office “shall not be denied
or abridged on account of sex.” Art. IV, §1 (emphasis added).
And in the next sentence it made clear what “on account of
sex” meant, stating that “[b]oth male and female citizens
. . . shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights
and privileges.” Ibid.
    The most prominent example of a provision using this
language was the Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920,
which bans the denial or abridgment of the right to vote “on
account of sex.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 19. Similar language
appeared in the proposal of the National Woman’s Party for
an Equal Rights Amendment. As framed in 1921, this pro-
posal forbade all “political, civil or legal disabilities or ine-
qualities on account of sex, [o]r on account of marriage.”
                   Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020)               27 ALITO, J., dissenting

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