congress specifically limits arbitration to instances where appropriate and authorized by law that matters when congress and acts of statute to protect employees from signing away their rights and from discrimination and contract that matters when congress goes out of its way to well before the federal retracement act over a half century before that and at a time when employment arbitration was extraordinarily rare which meant that congress was of the presumption that claims unless stated otherwise would not be a so it's not just that the congress wanted to use the federal courts to enforce the statute but rather that they both wanted to use the federal courts to force the statute and saw access to the federal judiciary as an essential component of equal american citizenship with trade which they example the freedman's bureau tribunals congress received testimony regarding those and was and was informed in some instances black employees were worse off than they were under slavery as a result of the failures of these tribunals and so congress said well this isn't litigants and they have no ability to report a violation to the e e o c or any other governmental agency they have no ability to have that statute enforced on their behalf by any government agency which is not bound by arbitration and so i ninety one claims can be compelled to arbitration the the effect would be that individual litigants down by arbitration would have no recourse outside of the conference room in an office building and that means that due to the confidential and private both in the senate private both in the sense of nonpublic and private in the sense of confidential nature of arbitration that there would be no public docket no press coverage no availability  individuals to witness the proceedings or the testimony and that means that both in terms of specific deterrence and in terms of general deterrence that the effects of sex ninety one would be fatally undermined and in fact one of the primary considerations of employers is to avoid public embarrassment through press coverage that is one of mean drivers of settlement and so to allow employers to avoid public embarrassment its text to preclude mandatory arbitration or if and only if the texas ambiguous through the legislative history for the purpose of a conflict with the purpose of the statute to prohibit mediterraneo arbitration hasn't done that analysis or made that showing and the very first problem with this analysis that appellant advances is agreement upon what text needs to be analyzed in this case the claim that was asserted was pursued under section one thousand nine hundred one as amended that's the statute not the one hundred twenty five year old eight hundred sixty six civil rights act from the reconstruction or that's not the statute that appellant pursued his claim and yet what he's asking this court to do is to skip the analysis skip the textual analysis or if there is a textual analysis go all the way back to the statute that is not the one that is present in this lawsuit and then also skip the fact that the pluggable text is an unambiguous and go into the legislative history and not the legislative history of the political text the legislative history of the hundred twenty five year old statute and despite that the legist the text is an ambiguous go back to the purpose not of the a political statute but of the one hundred twenty five year old statue and that's a fundamental problem now the language that appellant rests its theory on is the where appropriate and to the extent authorized by law language found in the one nine hundred ninety one civil rights act better men's section is where appropriate and to the extent authorized by law the use of a d r and a paraphrasing including arbitration is quote encouraged to resolve disputes arising under the act and the law amended by this title we would posit how can the court interpret this language differently with respect to different statutes the interpretation needs to be consistent throughout now has there been an interpretation of this language there have been twenty years of interpretations of the slang which in this court itself grappled with this very language first in duffield in which it reached one contrary interpretation this court was not happy with its analysis in and in overruled itself in the on bank decision in loose forward and which it grappled precisely with what does where appropriate in authorized by law mean this court has already decided the issue what it decided it means is mandatory arbitration of employment discrimination statutory employment discrimination claims now the there are several cases that address this throughout the country although admittedly there aren't that many circuit level cases that had that grapple with this analysis precisely but part of the reason for that i posit would be that it's been decided it's been decided for years that  we believe that the where appropriate language simply means that were appropriate under the f a a in two thousand just a few years later the california supreme court in the landmark case of aman doris also said we don't agree with the field we believe that the where appropriate and authorized by law language means the arbiter ability issues the reasons why arbitration clauses may not otherwise be enforceable and then three years after that this court issued its decision and loose adopting or affirming the conclusions in both seuss and armin dars citing those cases specifically and also agreeing with this interpretation of the where appropriate authorized by law years after that in two thousand and nine the u s supreme court in fourteen penn plaza concluded without a lot of analysis but nonetheless in footnote six that this same language and one eighteen meant to quote it encourages the use of arbitration for dispute resolution and then just recently and twenty fourteen this court in ashby versus archstone again grappled with what is the meaning of that language and determined that it meant that an employee must knowingly waive his statutory remedies which is consistent with the precedent before that which is the where appropriate as authorized by law really refers to the other reasons an arbitration agreement might not be enforceable either under the f a a under principles of unconscionable italy under other contract principles because the agreement was not knowing there are many reasons an arbitration agreement might not be enforceable but none of those reasons renders the ability to use mandatory arbitration in employment prohibited and part of the the other problem that we have with the advanced by appellant is that they they sort of roll wyatt right over the analysis the order of analysis that ought to take place because not having shown that the text is unambiguous there  any basis for going into the legislative history so why are we talking about the legislative history and incidentally the legislative history that would need to be discussed if any at all would be the legislative history of section one eighteen which amended in one thousand nine hundred one how is it possible that a court would evaluate the legislative history but choose not to look at the legislative history that is the most  recent even amending the statute and that most recent legislation encourages the use of arbitration incidentally there's not very much legislative history about section one thousand nine hundred one because for years it wasn't actions under the color of law that was clarified in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight but also it also it wasn't clear that it applied to employment claims while there wasn't a pronouncement that it did not apply there also wasn't use of the statute in that way so it was unclear and that didn't come about until the seventy's when the supreme court explicitly acknowledged that yes it applies to private transactions and it applies to private employment so this b question how is it possible that this older statute that opponents advance could have possibly intended to preclude the use of mandatory arbitration in employment when that concept wasn't even seize conceived of at the time moreover even if you accept a pants argument that somehow congress should be excused from not knowing how to prohibit this option it certainly had a chance to prohibit it and when it enact to the f a a in one thousand thirty five or it had the opportunity to prohibit it in the seventy years after that and it chose not to its first pronouncement on this issue i please the court respondent raises a number of points none of which have significant merit for example respondent talks about how this court he not read the legislative history or fundamental what arbitration should be done with in regards to those statutes so there's appellee is saying well congress can we say yes or no thumbs up thumbs down but we're saying is congress can do whatever it wants congress can say well arbitration is encouraged in some instances but only when appropriate and authorized by law and authorized by law has to mean something it can't just mean it's the standard contract offenses which would exist regardless and this court recognized  well let's look to the text let's look to the legislative history let's look to the fundamental purposes of section one thousand anyone not of the statute that set that terms of the analysis that occurs only you only look at the legislative history if you says text legislative history or fundamental purposes and in fact in gilmer the plaintiff there conceded that there was nothing in the text or legislative history of the a t f that precluded arbitration he focused on on the fundamental purposes and as a last minute i would like to note that section one thousand is among the reconstruction era civil rights act which the supreme court has held to be unique and that the dominant characteristic of those acts is that they belong