Page:Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).pdf/10

6 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. Cf. Burrage v. United States, 571 U. S. 204, 211–212 (2014). 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. So long as the plaintiff’s sex was one but-for cause of that decision, that is enough to trigger the law. See ibid.; Nassar, 570 U. S., at 350.

No doubt, Congress could have taken a more parsimonious approach. As it has in other statutes, it could have added “solely” to indicate that actions taken “because of” the confluence of multiple factors do not violate the law. Cf. 11 U. S. C. §525; 16 U. S. C. §511. Or it could have written “primarily because of” to indicate that the prohibited factor had to be the main cause of the defendant’s challenged employment decision. Cf. 22 U. S. C. §2688. But none of this is the law we have. If anything, Congress has moved in the opposite direction, supplementing Title VII in 1991 to allow a plaintiff to prevail merely by showing that a protected trait like sex was a “motivating factor” in a defendant’s challenged employment practice. Civil Rights Act of 1991, §107, 105 Stat. 1075, codified at 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(m). Under this more forgiving standard, liability can sometimes follow even if sex wasn’t a but-for cause of the employer’s challenged decision. Still, because nothing in our analysis depends on the motivating factor test, we focus on the more traditional but-for causation standard that continues to afford a viable, if no longer exclusive, path to relief under Title VII. §2000e–2(a)(1).

As sweeping as even the but-for causation standard can be, Title VII does not concern itself with everything that happens “because of” sex. The statute imposes liability on