Page:Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).pdf/75

38 decide for the defendants in Oncale, it would have been necessary to carve out an exception to the statutory text. Here, no such surgery is at issue. Even if we totally disregard the societal norms of 1964, the text of Title VII does not support the Court’s holding. And the reasoning of Oncale does not preclude or counsel against our taking those norms into account. They are relevant, not for the purpose of creating an exception to the terms of the statute, but for the purpose of better appreciating how those terms would have been understood at the time.

The Court argues that two other decisions—Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U. S. 542 (1971) (per curiam), and Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U. S. 702 (1978)—buttress its decision, but those cases merely held that Title VII prohibits employer conduct that plainly constitutes discrimination because of biological sex. In Philips, the employer treated women with young children less favorably than men with young children. In Manhart, the employer required women to make larger pension contributions than men. It is hard to see how these holdings assist the Court.

The Court extracts three “lessons” from Phillips, Manhart, and Oncale, but none sheds any light on the question before us. The first lesson is that “it’s irrelevant what an employer might call its discriminatory practice, how others might label it, or what else might motivate it.” Ante, at 14. This lesson is obviously true but proves nothing. As to the label attached to a practice, has anyone ever thought that the application of a law to a person’s conduct depends on how it is labeled? Could a bank robber escape conviction by saying he was engaged in asset enhancement? So if an employer discriminates because of sex, the employer is liable no matter what it calls its conduct, but if the employer’s