Opinion of the Court
too. Maybe the law concerns itself simply with ensuring that employers don’t treat women generally less favorably than they do men. So how can we tell which sense, individual or group, “discriminate” carries in Title VII?
The statute answers that question directly. It tells us three times—including immediately after the words “discriminate against”—that our focus should be on individuals, not groups: Employers may not “fail or refuse to hire or ... discharge any individual, or otherwise ... discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s ... sex.” §2000e–2(a)(1) (emphasis added). And the meaning of “individual” was as uncontroversial in 1964 as it is today: “A particular being as distinguished from a class, species, or collection.” Webster’s New International Dictionary, at 1267. Here, again, Congress could have written the law differently. It might have said that “it shall be an unlawful employment practice to prefer one sex to the other in hiring, firing, or the terms or conditions of employment.” It might have said that there should be no “sex discrimination,” perhaps implying a focus on differential treatment between the two sexes as groups. More narrowly still, it could have forbidden only “sexist policies” against women as a class. But, once again, that is not the law we have.
The consequences of the law’s focus on individuals rather than groups are anything but academic. Suppose an employer fires a woman for refusing his sexual advances. It’s no defense for the employer to note that, while he treated that individual woman worse than he would have treated a man, he gives preferential treatment to female employees overall. The employer is liable for treating this woman worse in part because of her sex. Nor is it a defense for an employer to say it discriminates against both men and women because of sex. This statute works to protect individuals of both sexes from discrimination, and does so
