See Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School Dist. 1667 Milton P. L. IX, 822 To add what wants In Femal Sex. . Nor does the fact an employer may happen to favor women as a class. The Court refused a reading of “mineral deposits” that would include water, even if “water is a ‘mineral,’ in the broadest sense of that word,” because it would bring about a “major . Discrimination “because of sex” was not understood as having anything to do with discrimination because of sexual orientation or transgender status. Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. Nor did the Court concern itself with whether men as a group were subject to discrimination or whether something in addition to sex contributed to the discrimination, like the plaintiff ’s conduct or personal attributes. The answer is plainly no. But the Eleventh Circuit held in Bostock v. Clayton County Board of Commissioners, 723 F. App’x 964 (11th Cir. The employers worry that our decision will sweep beyond Title VII to other federal or state laws that prohibit sex discrimination. 1(a)) (“Any set of two or more categories, such as masculine, feminine, and neuter, into which words are divided . But the majority opinion achieves the same outcome by seizing on literal meaning and overlooking the ordinary meaning of the phrase “discriminate because of sex.” Although the majority opinion acknowledges that the meaning of a phrase and the meaning of a phrase’s individual words could differ, it dismisses phrasal meaning for purposes of this case. Ante, at 9–10. 17–1618. Because the plaintiff alleged that the harassment would not have taken place but for his sex—that is, the plaintiff would not have suffered similar treatment if he were female—a triable Title VII claim existed. 1382 Wyclif Gen. vi. Hist. . ; Nassar, 570 U. S., at 350. Between these cases, as well as prior Circuit court decisions, there had been a split of opinions on whether sexual orientation discrimination is covered by Title VII. 180/2 in Holinshed, The whole sex of the Oconhours. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, Gerald Lynn Bostock—a gay man—worked for Clayton County, Georgia (“Clayton County”) as a Child Welfare Services Coordinator at the Juvenile Court of Clayton County. See Housing. To get a picture of this, we may imagine this scene. Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., Anyone who examines those definitions can see that the primary definition in every one of them refers to the division of living things into two groups, male and female, based on biology, and most of the definitions further down the list are the same or very similar. It would say that its objection was his sexual orientation. But several different sets of gender-neutral pronouns have now been created and are preferred by some individuals who do not identify as falling into either of the two traditional categories. Judges may not update the law merely because they think that Congress does not have the votes or the fortitude. An employer musters no better a defense by responding that it is equally happy to fire male and female employees who are homosexual or transgender. It is not biological sex, attraction to men, or attraction to women. Like many cases in this Court, this case boils down to one fundamental question: Who decides? The first of these is essentially that sexual orientation and gender identity are closely related to sex. June 23, 2020. 2387, 2457 (2003). The judgments of the Second and Sixth Circuits in Nos. School Bd., No. to discriminate . Ante, at 25–26. 17–1618, at 14; see also Brief for Southern Poverty Law Center et al. . But the Court declines to stand on that ground and instead “proceed[s] on the assumption that ‘sex’ . A “washing machine” could literally refer to any machine used for washing any item, but in everyday speech it means a machine for washing clothes. Justice Scalia explained the extraordinary importance of hewing to the ordinary meaning of a phrase: “Adhering to the fair meaning of the text (the textualist’s touchstone) does not limit one to the hyperliteral meaning of each word in the text. 408 U.S. 238, 467 (1972) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). American Psychological Association, 49 Monitor on Psychology, at 32. He characterized Gorsuch's majority opinion in Bostock as "glorifying textualism in its narrowest literalist conception". An employer who discriminates on this ground might be called “homophobic” or “transphobic,” but not sexist. See, e.g., Sarac v. State Bd. It indisputably did not. In Mr. Bostock’s case, the Eleventh Circuit held that the law does not prohibit employers from firing employees for being gay and so his suit could be dismissed as a matter of law. As enacted, Title VII prohibits all forms of discrimination because of sex, however they may manifest themselves or whatever other labels might attach to them. The lessons these cases hold are instructive here. In Bostock v. Clayton County the Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination against members LGBTQ community. It was not until 1980 that the APA, in DSM–III, recognized two main psychiatric diagnoses related to this condition, “Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood” and “Transsexualism” in adolescents and adults. Rev. Homosexuals were also excluded from entry into the United States. In each of these cases, an employer allegedly fired a long-time employee simply for being homosexual or transgender. 18–107, 884 F.3d 560, affirmed. The Nixon and Clinton Executive Orders remain in effect today. Clayton County, Georgia, fired Gerald Bostock for conduct “unbecoming” a county employee shortly after he began participating in a gay recreational softball league. . . The fact or character of being either male or female: persons of different sex. Title VII prohibits discrimination based on five specified grounds, and neither sexual orientation nor gender identity is on the list. And for good measure, the Court’s conclusion that Title VII unambiguously reaches discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity necessarily means that the EEOC failed to see the obvious for the first 48 years after Title VII became law. The Court draws a distinction between things that are “inextricably” related and those that are related in “some vague sense.” Ante, at 10. (prohibiting discrimination because of “sex, sexual orientation,” etc. 11375, 3 CFR 684 (1966–1970 Comp. . For the past two decades, federal courts have determined that discrimination on the basis of LGBT status is unlawful discrimination under federal law. The property or quality by which organ-isms are classified according to their reproductive functions. GAO, D. Heivilin, Security Clearances: Consideration of Sexual Orientation in the Clearance Process 2 (GAO/NSIAD–95–21, 1995). The ordinary meaning that counts is the ordinary public meaning at the time of enactment—although in this case, that temporal principle matters little because the ordinary meaning of “discriminate because of sex” was the same in 1964 as it is now. The majority opinion deflects that critique by saying that courts should base their interpretation of statutes on the text as written, not on the legislators’ subjective intentions. In sum, all of the usual indicators of ordinary meaning—common parlance, common usage by Congress, the practice in the Executive Branch, the laws in the States, and the decisions of this Court—overwhelmingly establish that sexual orientation discrimination is distinct from, and not a form of, sex discrimination. The judgment of the Eleventh Circuit in No. Such a policy would be unfair and foolish, but under Title VII, it is permitted. But motherhood, by definition, is a condition that can be experienced only by women, so a policy that distinguishes between motherhood and parenthood is necessarily a policy that draws a sex-based distinction. There’s no authoritative evidence explaining why later Congresses adopted other laws referencing sexual orientation but didn’t amend this one. But it is the law. 19 Both sexe goe naked. . As already explained at length, the text of Title VII does not prohibit discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. Blanket Consent: Jun 26 2019: Joint appendix filed (in 17-1618). The decision then involved the statutory interpretation of Title VII, not constitutional law as in other recent landmark cases involving the rights of LGBT individuals such as Obergefell v. lxxi, Mad-making waters, sex trans-forming springs. At bottom, these cases involve no more than the straightforward application of legal terms with plain and settled meanings. Bot. L. It makes no difference if other factors besides the plaintiff’s sex contributed to the decision or that the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group. 42 U. S. C. §3631 (Fair Housing Act); 15 U. S. C. 1691(a)(1) (Equal Credit Opportunity Act). (b) Three leading precedents confirm what the statute’s plain terms suggest. That distinguishes these cases from countless others where Title VII has nothing to say. Any assessment of congressional intent or legislative history seriously undermines the Court’s interpretation. 8 U. S. C. §1422 (emphasis added). [15] Georgia was one of those states without any law protecting LGBT people from employment discrimination. of the human race) viewed collectively. That longstanding and widespread congressional practice matters. sesso. As sweeping as even the but-for causation standard can be, Title VII does not concern itself with everything that happens “because of ” sex. L. Rev. Order No. 347, 376 (2005). 69, 72–73 (1967) (upholding revocation of secondary teaching credential from teacher who was convicted of engaging in homosexual conduct on public beach), overruled in part, Morrison v. State Bd. Clayton County, Georgia, fired Gerald Bostock for conduct “unbecoming” a county employee shortly after he began participating in a gay recreational softball league. The Court’s brusque refusal to consider the consequences of its reasoning is irresponsible. 424 For Spirits when they please can either Sex assume, or both. (Recall that the shorthand version of the phrase at issue here is “discriminate because of sex.”)[3] Courts must heed the ordinary meaning of the phrase as a whole, not just the meaning of the words in the phrase. 8), refers to sexual conduct that is not necessarily heterosexual. . But that’s an invitation no court should ever take up. § 2000e-2(a)(1), states that it is illegal to discriminate in any hiring or employment practices based on an "individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin". Our role is not to make or amend the law. 7. to ascertain the sex of, esp. And that's not the power Article III gives judges", "Gorsuch, Conservative Favorite Appointed by Trump, Leads Way on Landmark Decision", "Trump says 'we live' with SCOTUS decision on LGBTQ worker rights", "These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. Stat. . sexe’s). Would the employers have us undo every one of these unexpected applications too? Editor’s note: This originally appeared Monday, June 14 at erlc.com. See Appendix C, infra; e.g., How could sex be necessary to the result if a member of the opposite sex might face the same outcome from the same policy? Burrage v. United States, The Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v.Clayton County, which incorporates sexual orientation and gender identity into Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, is a victory for gay rights advocates and entrenches gender ideology into civil rights law.Many are asking about its implications for religious liberty. f. Without the, in predicative quasi-adj. 19–1952 (CA4, Nov. 18, 2019) (transgender student forced to use gender neutral bathrooms at school); Complaint in Corbitt v. Taylor, No. Nor is it a defense for an employer to say it discriminates against both men and women because of sex. I. ); Ore. Rev. 400 U.S. 542, a company was held to have violated Title VII by refusing to hire women with young children, despite the fact that the discrimination also depended on being a parent of young children and the fact that the company favored hiring women over men. By comparing the woman who applied to be a mechanic to a man who applied to be a mechanic, we’ve quietly changed two things: the applicant’s sex and her trait of failing to conform to 1950s gender roles. Another longstanding canon of statutory interpretation—the absurdity canon—similarly reflects the law’s focus on ordinary meaning rather than literal meaning. . §2000bb–1. [39] Ken Mehlman took the decision as evidence that conservatism is not inconsistent with support for LGBT rights. The Court in Oncale observed that this specific type of behavior “was assuredly not the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII,” but it found that immaterial because “statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed.” 523 U. S., at 79 (emphasis added). So if an employer discriminates because of sex, the employer is liable no matter what it calls its conduct, but if the employer’s conduct is not sex discrimination, the statute does not apply. 429 U.S. 190, 197–199 (1976); Frontiero v. Richardson, We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex. 69–70 (“If there was that case, it might be the rare case in which sexual orientation discrimination is not a subset of sex”); see also, See also Brief for William N. Eskridge Jr. et al. sex, v. t. To determine the sex of, as skeletal remains. For most 21st-century Americans, it is painful to be reminded of the way our society once treated gays and lesbians, but any honest effort to understand what the terms of Title VII were understood to mean when enacted must take into account the societal norms of that time. Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. We can see this because it is quite possible for an employer to discriminate on those grounds without taking the sex of an individual applicant or employee into account. Until now, federal law has always reflected that common usage and recognized that distinction between sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination. . In conversation, a speaker is likely to focus on what seems most relevant or informative to the listener. Unsurprisingly by now, these submissions did not sway the Court. La Primaud. 1 Bd. . Title VII liability is not limited to employers who, through the sum of all of their employment actions, treat the class of men differently than the class of women. . In fact, many now-obvious applications met with heated opposition early on, even among those tasked with enforcing the law. [60] After today’s decision, plaintiffs may claim that the failure to use their preferred pronoun violates one of the federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination. 1701 Stanhope St. Aug. Medit. 265 It would astonish you to see the mixture of sexes at this place. Argument Date: October 8, 2019 From: The Eleventh Circuit (Bostock) and The Second Circuit (Zarda) by Steven D. Schwinn University of Illinois Chicago John Marshall Law School, Chicago, IL . Contrary to the majority opinion’s approach today, this Court has repeatedly emphasized that common parlance matters in assessing the ordinary meaning of a statute, because courts heed how “most people” “would have understood” the text of a statute when enacted. (c) The employers do not dispute that they fired their employees for being homosexual or transgender. 2019) (prohibiting discrimination because of “sex, . §2000e–1(a). “Sex,” “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” are different concepts, as the Court concedes. For the sake of argument, I will assume that firing someone because of their sexual orientation may, as a very literal matter, entail making a distinction based on sex. 523 U.S. 75 (1998), a male plaintiff alleged that he was singled out by his male co-workers for sexual harassment. Amendment & everything else. Those cases exemplify a deeply rooted principle: When there is a divide between the literal meaning and the ordinary meaning, courts must follow the ordinary meaning. ; sex-cell, a reproductive cell, with either male or female function; a sperm-cell or an egg-cell. 1768 Goldsm. If the policy works as the employer intends, the answer depends entirely on whether the model employee is a man or a woman. 543 U.S. 335, 341–342 (2005); Custis v. United States, . See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 111) Concerning Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation, Art. In upholding the ruling, the Eleventh Circuit pointed to their ruling in Evans that dismissed the Supreme Court's precedent against sex discrimination set by Price Waterhouse and Oncale.[18]. If that is so, it should be perfectly clear that Title VII does not reach discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. More narrowly still, it could have forbidden only “sexist policies” against women as a class. 6. to have sex, Informal. So, for example, if a car accident occurred both because the defendant ran a red light and because the plaintiff failed to signal his turn at the intersection, we might call each a but-for cause of the collision. And in Alexander Hamilton’s words, federal judges exercise “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment.” The Federalist No. Ibid. So if an employer is happy to employ whites and blacks but will not employ any employee in an interracial relationship, how can it be said that the employer is discriminating against either whites or blacks “because of such individual’s race”? See Gross, 557 U. S., at 176. In 1973, Congress passed and President Nixon signed the Rehabilitation Act, which in substance prohibited disability discrimination against federal and certain other employees. 2009); see also American Heritage Dictionary 1607 (5th ed. Instead, the law makes each instance of discriminating against an individual employee because of that individual’s sex an independent violation of Title VII. First, it is irrelevant what an employer might call its discriminatory practice, how others might label it, or what else might motivate it. 18-107 06-15-2020 gerald lynn bostock, petitioner v. clayton county, georgia altitude express, inc., et al., petitioners v. melissa zarda and william allen moore, jr., co-independent executors of the estate of donald zarda r.g. Judges are not free to overlook plain statutory commands on the strength of nothing more than suppositions about intentions or guesswork about expectations. Not necessarily because he was interested in rooting out sex discrimination in all its forms, but because he may have hoped to scuttle the whole Civil Rights Act and thought that adding language covering sex discrimination would serve as a poison pill. [14] In April 2013, Clayton County conducted an audit of funds controlled by Bostock and fired him for "conduct unbecoming a county employee". [45] Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio stated that the ruling was "a big deal" and emphasized that people should not be fired simply because of their sexual orientation. 517 U.S. 620 (1996); Lawrence v. Texas, Gone here is any pretense of statutory interpretation; all that’s left is a suggestion we should proceed without the law’s guidance to do as we think best. 570 U.S. 338, 350 (2013) (citing Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., Many Justices of this Court, both past and present, have not espoused or practiced a method of statutory interpretation that is limited to the analysis of statutory text. 18–107, p. 5. It had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy as a means to combat racial discrimination and racial segregation in the aftermath of the Birmingham campaign. In addition to the failed argument just discussed, the Court makes two other arguments, more or less in passing. After all, covering male employees may not have been the intent of some who voted for the statute. So we need to hold that second trait constant: Instead of comparing the disappointed female applicant to a man who applied for the same position, the employer would say, we should compare her to a man who applied to be a secretary. Bottom line: Statutory Interpretation 101 instructs courts to follow ordinary meaning, not literal meaning, and to adhere to the ordinary meaning of phrases, not just the meaning of the words in a phrase. (prohibiting discrimination because of “sex,” “sexual orientation,” etc. 11, 2020) (state health plan’s exclusion of coverage for sex reassignment procedures); Complaint in Gore v. Lee, No. That form of causation is established whenever a particular outcome would not have happened “but for” the purported cause. . IX, §9; accord, Mont. Clayton County, Geor- That is because a phrase may have a more precise or confined meaning than the literal meaning of the individual words in the phrase. “What the rule of absurdity seeks to do is what all rules of interpretation seek to do: See sexed, sexing, sexes. Kavanaugh, J., filed a dissenting opinion. And, as we’ve seen, that suggestion is at odds with everything we know about the statute. But each of these arguments turns out only to repackage errors we’ve already seen and this Court’s precedents have already rejected. 235 As he that had tolde a long tale before certaine noble women, of a matter somewhat in honour touching the Sex. . 586 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 6–9). 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, notwithstanding the policy’s evenhandedness between men and women as groups. sex.” Convention (No. Either of the two divisions, designated female and male, by which most organisms are classified on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions: How do you determine the sex of a lobster? Advocacy groups distinguish the two. 42 U. S. C. §2000bb et seq. One complaint filed in 1969, another filed in 1974, and arguments made in the mid-1970s about the meaning of the Equal Rights Amendment. & G.R. because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Surprisingly, the Court today buys into this approach. Now it’s time for the latter. According to the Court, the text is unambiguous. Stat. LGBT Rights Decision: What it Means and What to Do. Stat. . Not the text of Title VII. That is, there may be cases where traits or behaviors that some people associate with gays, lesbians, or transgender individuals are tolerated or valued in persons of one biological sex but not the other. Did the Court in all of those sexual orientation cases just miss that obvious answer—and overlook the fact that sexual orientation discrimination is actually a form of sex discrimination? Ante, at 9–12. Her candid answer was that this would “not” be sex discrimination. On June 12, the Supreme Court affirmed the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community to take action if they experience discrimination in the workplace (Bostock v. Clayton County). 149 U.S. 304, 307 (1893). On some accounts, the congressman may have wanted (or at least was indifferent to the possibility of ) broad language with wide-ranging effect. That’s just the beginning of the law we would have to unravel. If the Court had allowed the legislative process to take its course, Congress would have had the opportunity to consider competing interests and might have found a way of accommodating at least some of them. 556 U.S. 816, 820 (2009). In 1969, President Nixon issued a new order that did the same. Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1307 (1966): sex (seks), n. 1. Cf. Of course that is true. 1730 Swift Let. Seneca Falls was not Stonewall. If the usual evidence indicates that a statutory phrase bears an ordinary meaning different from the literal strung-together definitions of the individual words in the phrase, we may not ignore or gloss over that discrepancy. In cases like those before us, a plaintiff must show that sex was a “motivating factor” in the challenged employment action, lxxix, We give the sex the pas. But Title VII doesn’t care. Rather, they contend that even intentional discrimination against employees based on their homosexual or transgender status is not a basis for Title VII liability. [10] And she was right. 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. 3. the sum of the structural and functional differences by which the male and female are distinguished, or the phenomena or behavior dependent on these differences. “[O]ne can make sense of others’ communications only by placing them in their appropriate social and linguistic context,” id., at 79–80, and this is no less true of statutes than any other verbal communications. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, a landmark case for gay and transgender rights, the Supreme Court resolved a circuit split and bridged a long-standing administrative agency divide. Co. v. Gilbert, of Corrections v. Yeskey, The Court tries to prove that “it is impossible to discriminate 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 entirely possible for an employer to do just that. A literalist approach to interpreting phrases disrespects ordinary meaning and deprives the citizenry of fair notice of what the law is. But Skrmetti notes that where a statute is ambiguous, such tools might still be available to judges in interpreting statutes. Gorsuch’s majority opinion leaves no wiggle room. Meanwhile, in Mr. Zarda’s case, the Second Circuit concluded that sexual orientation discrimination does violate Title VII and allowed his case to proceed. But that is not the policy embodied in Title VII in its current form. 245 There is not a notion more generally adopted, that that vegetables have the distinction of sexes. ); Mass. Rather than suggesting that the statutory language bears some other meaning, the employers and dissents merely suggest that, because few in 1964 expected today’s result, we should not dare to admit that it follows ineluctably from the statutory text. See Wittmer v. Phillips 66 Co., 915 F.3d 328, 338 (CA5 2019) (Ho, J., concurring). 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. A second prominent argument made in support of the result that the Court now reaches analogizes discrimination against gays and lesbians to discrimination against a person who is married to or has an intimate relationship with a person of a different race. When it comes to Title VII, the adoption of the traditional but-for causation standard means a defendant cannot avoid liability just by citing some other factor that contributed to its challenged employment decision. In either case, no one would deny that the window is open “because of ” the outside temperature. That does not mean, however, that an employee or applicant for employment cannot prevail by showing that a challenged decision was based on a sex stereotype. Sexual intercourse. Summary of Bostock v. Clayton CountyThe United States Supreme Court held in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia on June 15 that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)(1), Title VII allows employers to decide whether two employees are “materially identical.” Even idiosyncratic criteria are permitted; if an employer thinks that Scorpios make bad employees, the employer can refuse to hire Scorpios. See ante, at 5–9. The details of the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County are complex. The questions answer themselves. . §363A.08(2) (2018) (prohibiting discrimination because of “sex, . . Under the Constitution and laws of the United States, this Court is the wrong body to change American law in that way. . bostock v. clayton county decided jun 15, 2020 no. The Second and Sixth Circuits allowed the claims to proceed. By the end of the 1960s, the EEOC reversed its stance on sex-segregated job advertising. Rather, Title VII identifies certain specific categories of prohibited discrimination. This postenactment legislative history, they urge, should tell us something. Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H. R. 5’s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation. 22 Going ‘up stairs’, as the sex says, at 5 a.m. on the day after arrival, I cast the first glance at Funchal. Most everyone familiar with the use of the English language in America understands that the ordinary meaning of sexual orientation discrimination is distinct from the ordinary meaning of sex discrimination. “Legislation cannot sensibly be interpreted by stringing together dictionary synonyms of each word and proclaiming that, if the right example of the meaning of each is selected, the ‘plain meaning’ of the statute leads to a particular result. 501 U.S. 380, 410 (1991) (dissenting opinion). Nineteen Justices have participated in those cases. The majority opinion insists that it is not rewriting or updating Title VII, but instead is just humbly reading the text of the statute as written. See, e.g., Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, As to Title VII itself, the Court dismisses questions about “bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.” Ante, at 31. . See Part III–C, infra. harassment”). 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