(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2006 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO., INC. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 05–1074. Argued November 27, 2006—Decided May 29, 2007 

During most of the time that petitioner Ledbetter was employed by

respondent Goodyear, salaried employees at the plant where she

worked were given or denied raises based on performance evaluations. Ledbetter submitted a questionnaire to the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in March 1998 and a formal EEOC

charge in July 1998. After her November 1998 retirement, she filed 

suit, asserting, among other things, a sex discrimination claim under

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The District Court allowed 

her Title VII pay discrimination claim to proceed to trial. There, 

Ledbetter alleged that several supervisors had in the past given her 

poor evaluations because of her sex; that as a result, her pay had not 

increased as much as it would have if she had been evaluated fairly;

that those past pay decisions affected the amount of her pay throughout her employment; and that by the end of her employment, she was

earning significantly less than her male colleagues. Goodyear maintained that the evaluations had been nondiscriminatory, but the jury

found for Ledbetter, awarding backpay and damages. On appeal, 

Goodyear contended that the pay discrimination claim was time 

barred with regard to all pay decisions made before September 26,

1997—180 days before Ledbetter filed her EEOC questionnaire—and 

that no discriminatory act relating to her pay occurred after that

date. The Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that a Title VII pay discrimination claim cannot be based on allegedly discriminatory events 

that occurred before the last pay decision that affected the employee’s 

pay during the EEOC charging period, and concluding that there was 

insufficient evidence to prove that Goodyear had acted with discriminatory intent in making the only two pay decisions during that period, denials of raises in 1997 and 1998. 
2 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Syllabus 

Held: Because the later effects of past discrimination do not restart the 

clock for filing an EEOC charge, Ledbetter’s claim is untimely.

Pp. 4–24.

(a) An individual wishing to bring a Title VII lawsuit must first file

an EEOC charge within, as relevant here, 180 days “after the alleged 

unlawful employment practice occurred.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)(1).

In addressing the issue of an EEOC charge’s timeliness, this Court

has stressed the need to identify with care the specific employment

practice at issue. Ledbetter’s arguments—that the paychecks that

she received during the charging period and the 1998 raise denial

each violated Title VII and triggered a new EEOC charging period—

fail because they would require the Court in effect to jettison the defining element of the disparate-treatment claim on which her Title 

VII recovery was based, discriminatory intent. United Air Lines, Inc. 

v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553, Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 

250, Lorance v. AT&T Technologies, Inc., 490 U. S. 900, and National 

Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Morgan, 536 U. S. 101, clearly instruct that the EEOC charging period is triggered when a discrete 

unlawful practice takes place. A new violation does not occur, and a 

new charging period does not commence, upon the occurrence of subsequent nondiscriminatory acts that entail adverse effects resulting

from the past discrimination. But if an employer engages in a series 

of separately actionable intentionally discriminatory acts, then a 

fresh violation takes place when each act is committed. Ledbetter 

makes no claim that intentionally discriminatory conduct occurred 

during the charging period or that discriminatory decisions occurring

before that period were not communicated to her. She argues simply

that Goodyear’s nondiscriminatory conduct during the charging period gave present effect to discriminatory conduct outside of that period. But current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination. Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC charge

within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory employment decision was made and communicated to her. Her attempt to shift forward the intent associated with prior discriminatory acts to the 1998

pay decision is unsound, for it would shift intent away from the act

that consummated the discriminatory employment practice to a later

act not performed with bias or discriminatory motive, imposing liability in the absence of the requisite intent. Her argument would also

distort Title VII’s “integrated, multistep enforcement procedure.” Occidental Life Ins. Co. of Cal. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 359. The short 

EEOC filing deadline reflects Congress’ strong preference for the

prompt resolution of employment discrimination allegations through

voluntary conciliation and cooperation. Id., at 367–368. Nothing in

Title VII supports treating the intent element of Ledbetter’s dispa-
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

Syllabus 

rate-treatment claim any differently from the employment practice

element of the claim. Pp. 4–13.

(b) Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385 (per curiam), which concerned a disparate-treatment pay claim, is entirely consistent with 

Evans, Ricks, Lorance, and Morgan. Bazemore’s rule is that an employer violates Title VII and triggers a new EEOC charging period 

whenever the employer issues paychecks using a discriminatory pay 

structure. It is not, as Ledbetter contends, a “paycheck accrual rule” 

under which each paycheck, even if not accompanied by discriminatory intent, triggers a new EEOC charging period during which the 

complainant may properly challenge any prior discriminatory conduct that impacted that paycheck’s amount, no matter how long ago 

the discrimination occurred. Because Ledbetter has not adduced evidence that Goodyear initially adopted its performance-based pay system in order to discriminate based on sex or that it later applied this

system to her within the charging period with discriminatory animus, 

Bazemore is of no help to her. Pp. 13–21.

(c) Ledbetter’s “paycheck accrual rule” is also not supported by either analogies to the statutory regimes of the Equal Pay Act of 1963,

the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, or the National Labor Relations Act, or policy arguments for giving special treatment to pay

claims. Pp. 21–24. 

421 F. 3d 1169, affirmed. 

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., 

and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a 

dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and BREYER, JJ., joined. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 05–1074 

LILLY M. LEDBETTER, PETITIONER v. THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, INC. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

[May 29, 2007] 

JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. 

This case calls upon us to apply established precedent in 

a slightly different context. We have previously held that

the time for filing a charge of employment discrimination

with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

(EEOC) begins when the discriminatory act occurs. We 

have explained that this rule applies to any “[d]iscrete

ac[t]” of discrimination, including discrimination in “termination, failure to promote, denial of transfer, [and]

refusal to hire.” National Railroad Passenger Corporation 

v. Morgan, 536 U. S. 101, 114 (2002). Because a paysetting decision is a “discrete act,” it follows that the period for filing an EEOC charge begins when the act occurs.

Petitioner, having abandoned her claim under the Equal

Pay Act, asks us to deviate from our prior decisions in 

order to permit her to assert her claim under Title VII. 

Petitioner also contends that discrimination in pay is

different from other types of employment discrimination 

and thus should be governed by a different rule. But 

because a pay-setting decision is a discrete act that occurs

at a particular point in time, these arguments must be 
2 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

rejected. We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of 

Appeals. 

I 

Petitioner Lilly Ledbetter (Ledbetter) worked for respondent Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear) at its

Gadsden, Alabama, plant from 1979 until 1998. During

much of this time, salaried employees at the plant were

given or denied raises based on their supervisors’ evaluation of their performance. In March 1998, Ledbetter submitted a questionnaire to the EEOC alleging certain acts of

sex discrimination, and in July of that year she filed a

formal EEOC charge. After taking early retirement in 

November 1998, Ledbetter commenced this action, in 

which she asserted, among other claims, a Title VII pay

discrimination claim and a claim under the Equal Pay Act

of 1963 (EPA), 29 U. S. C. §206(d). 

The District Court granted summary judgment in favor 

of Goodyear on several of Ledbetter’s claims, including her

Equal Pay Act claim, but allowed others, including her 

Title VII pay discrimination claim, to proceed to trial. In 

support of this latter claim, Ledbetter introduced evidence 

that during the course of her employment several supervisors had given her poor evaluations because of her sex, 

that as a result of these evaluations her pay was not increased as much as it would have been if she had been 

evaluated fairly, and that these past pay decisions continued to affect the amount of her pay throughout her employment. Toward the end of her time with Goodyear, she 

was being paid significantly less than any of her male

colleagues. Goodyear maintained that the evaluations had 

been nondiscriminatory, but the jury found for Ledbetter 

and awarded her backpay and damages. 

On appeal, Goodyear contended that Ledbetter’s pay

discrimination claim was time barred with respect to all 

pay decisions made prior to September 26, 1997—that is, 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

180 days before the filing of her EEOC questionnaire.1 

And Goodyear argued that no discriminatory act relating 

to Ledbetter’s pay occurred after that date. 

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed,

holding that a Title VII pay discrimination claim cannot 

be based on any pay decision that occurred prior to the 

last pay decision that affected the employee’s pay during 

the EEOC charging period. 421 F. 3d 1169, 1182–1183 

(2005). The Court of Appeals then concluded that there

was insufficient evidence to prove that Goodyear had acted 

with discriminatory intent in making the only two pay 

decisions that occurred within that time span, namely, a

decision made in 1997 to deny Ledbetter a raise and a 

similar decision made in 1998. Id., at 1186–1187. 

Ledbetter filed a petition for a writ of certiorari but did

not seek review of the Court of Appeals’ holdings regarding the sufficiency of the evidence in relation to the 1997

and 1998 pay decisions. Rather, she sought review of the

following question: 

“Whether and under what circumstances a plaintiff 

may bring an action under Title VII of the Civil

Rights Act of 1964 alleging illegal pay discrimination

when the disparate pay is received during the statutory limitations period, but is the result of intentionally discriminatory pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period.” Pet. for Cert. i. 

In light of disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as

to the proper application of the limitations period in Title 

VII disparate-treatment pay cases, compare 421 F. 3d 

—————— 

1The parties assume that the EEOC charging period runs backwards 

from the date of the questionnaire, even though Ledbetter’s discriminatory pay claim was not added until the July 1998 formal charge. 421 

F. 3d 1169, 1178 (CA11 2005). We likewise assume for the sake of 

argument that the filing of the questionnaire, rather than the formal

charge, is the appropriate date. 
4 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

1169, with Forsyth v. Federation Employment & Guidance 

Serv., 409 F. 3d 565 (CA2 2005); Shea v. Rice, 409 F. 3d 

448 (CADC 2005), we granted certiorari, 548 U. S. ___

(2006). 

II 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it an

“unlawful employment practice” to discriminate “against

any individual with respect to his compensation . . . because of such individual’s . . . sex.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e– 

2(a)(1). An individual wishing to challenge an employment practice under this provision must first file a charge

with the EEOC. §2000e–5(e)(1). Such a charge must be 

filed within a specified period (either 180 or 300 days,

depending on the State) “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred,” ibid., and if the employee 

does not submit a timely EEOC charge, the employee may 

not challenge that practice in court, §2000e–5(f)(1). 

In addressing the issue whether an EEOC charge was

filed on time, we have stressed the need to identify with

care the specific employment practice that is at issue. 

Morgan, 536 U. S., at 110–111. Ledbetter points to two

different employment practices as possible candidates. 

Primarily, she urges us to focus on the paychecks that

were issued to her during the EEOC charging period (the

180-day period preceding the filing of her EEOC questionnaire), each of which, she contends, was a separate act of

discrimination. Alternatively, Ledbetter directs us to the

1998 decision denying her a raise, and she argues that this

decision was “unlawful because it carried forward intentionally discriminatory disparities from prior years.” 

Reply Brief for Petitioner 20. Both of these arguments fail

because they would require us in effect to jettison the

defining element of the legal claim on which her Title VII

recovery was based. 

Ledbetter asserted disparate treatment, the central 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

element of which is discriminatory intent. See Chardon v. 

Fernandez, 454 U. S. 6, 8 (1981) (per curiam); Teamsters v. 

United States, 431 U. S. 324, 335, n. 15 (1977); Watson v. 

Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U. S. 977, 1002 (1998) 

(Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan, and Marshall, JJ., 

concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“[A] 

disparate-treatment challenge focuses exclusively on the 

intent of the employer”). However, Ledbetter does not 

assert that the relevant Goodyear decisionmakers acted

with actual discriminatory intent either when they issued 

her checks during the EEOC charging period or when they

denied her a raise in 1998. Rather, she argues that the 

paychecks were unlawful because they would have been

larger if she had been evaluated in a nondiscriminatory 

manner prior to the EEOC charging period. Brief for 

Petitioner 22. Similarly, she maintains that the 1998 

decision was unlawful because it “carried forward” the 

effects of prior, uncharged discrimination decisions. Reply

Brief for Petitioner 20. In essence, she suggests that it is 

sufficient that discriminatory acts that occurred prior to

the charging period had continuing effects during that 

period. Brief for Petitioner 13 (“[E]ach paycheck that

offers a woman less pay than a similarly situated man

because of her sex is a separate violation of Title VII with

its own limitations period, regardless of whether the paycheck simply implements a prior discriminatory decision

made outside the limitations period”); see also Reply Brief 

for Petitioner 20. This argument is squarely foreclosed by 

our precedents.

In United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553 (1977), 

we rejected an argument that is basically the same as

Ledbetter’s. Evans was forced to resign because the airline refused to employ married flight attendants, but she

did not file an EEOC charge regarding her termination. 

Some years later, the airline rehired her but treated her 

as a new employee for seniority purposes. Id., at 554–555. 
6 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

Evans then sued, arguing that, while any suit based on

the original discrimination was time barred, the airline’s 

refusal to give her credit for her prior service gave “present effect to [its] past illegal act and thereby perpetuate[d] the consequences of forbidden discrimination.” Id., 

at 557. 

We agreed with Evans that the airline’s “seniority system [did] indeed have a continuing impact on her pay and 

fringe benefits,” id., at 558, but we noted that “the critical 

question [was] whether any present violation exist[ed].” 

Ibid. (emphasis in original). We concluded that the continuing effects of the precharging period discrimination 

did not make out a present violation. As JUSTICE STEVENS 

wrote for the Court: 

“United was entitled to treat [Evans’ termination] as

lawful after respondent failed to file a charge of discrimination within the 90 days then allowed by

§706(d). A discriminatory act which is not made the 

basis for a timely charge . . . is merely an unfortunate

event in history which has no present legal consequences.” Ibid. 

It would be difficult to speak to the point more directly. 

Equally instructive is Delaware State College v. Ricks, 

449 U. S. 250 (1980), which concerned a college librarian, 

Ricks, who alleged that he had been discharged because of 

race. In March 1974, Ricks was denied tenure, but he was 

given a final, nonrenewable one-year contract that expired

on June 30, 1975. Id., at 252–253. Ricks delayed filing a

charge with the EEOC until April 1975, id., at 254, but he 

argued that the EEOC charging period ran from the date of

his actual termination rather than from the date when 

tenure was denied. In rejecting this argument, we recognized that “one of the effects of the denial of tenure,” 

namely, his ultimate termination, “did not occur until 

later.” Id., at 258 (emphasis in original). But because 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

Ricks failed to identify any specific discriminatory act “that

continued until, or occurred at the time of, the actual 

termination of his employment,” id., at 257, we held that 

the EEOC charging period ran from “the time the tenure 

decision was made and communicated to Ricks,” id., at 258. 

This same approach dictated the outcome in Lorance v. 

AT&T Technologies, Inc., 490 U. S. 900 (1989), which grew

out of a change in the way in which seniority was calculated under a collective-bargaining agreement. Before 

1979, all employees at the plant in question accrued seniority based simply on years of employment at the plant. 

In 1979, a new agreement made seniority for workers in 

the more highly paid (and traditionally male) position of

“tester” depend on time spent in that position alone and 

not in other positions in the plant. Several years later, 

when female testers were laid off due to low seniority as

calculated under the new provision, they filed an EEOC

charge alleging that the 1979 scheme had been adopted

with discriminatory intent, namely, to protect incumbent

male testers when women with substantial plant seniority 

began to move into the traditionally male tester positions. 

Id., at 902–903. 

We held that the plaintiffs’ EEOC charge was not timely

because it was not filed within the specified period after 

the adoption in 1979 of the new seniority rule. We noted 

that the plaintiffs had not alleged that the new seniority 

rule treated men and women differently or that the rule 

had been applied in a discriminatory manner. Rather, 

their complaint was that the rule was adopted originally

with discriminatory intent. Id., at 905. And as in Evans 

and Ricks, we held that the EEOC charging period ran

from the time when the discrete act of alleged intentional 

discrimination occurred, not from the date when the effects of this practice were felt. 490 U. S., at 907–908. We 

stated: 
8 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

“Because the claimed invalidity of the facially nondiscriminatory and neutrally applied tester seniority system is wholly dependent on the alleged illegality of 

signing the underlying agreement, it is the date of 

that signing which governs the limitations period.” 

Id., at 911.2 

Our most recent decision in this area confirms this 

understanding. In Morgan, we explained that the statutory term “employment practice” generally refers to “a

discrete act or single ‘occurrence’” that takes place at a

particular point in time. 536 U. S., at 110–111. We 

pointed to “termination, failure to promote, denial of 

transfer, [and] refusal to hire” as examples of such “discrete” acts, and we held that a Title VII plaintiff “can only

file a charge to cover discrete acts that ‘occurred’ within

the appropriate time period.” Id., at 114. 

The instruction provided by Evans, Ricks, Lorance, and 

Morgan is clear. The EEOC charging period is triggered

when a discrete unlawful practice takes place. A new 

violation does not occur, and a new charging period does 

—————— 

2After Lorance, Congress amended Title VII to cover the specific 

situation involved in that case. See 42 U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(2) (allowing 

for Title VII liability arising from an intentionally discriminatory 

seniority system both at the time of its adoption and at the time of its

application). The dissent attaches great significance to this amendment, suggesting that it shows that Lorance was wrongly reasoned as 

an initial matter. Post, at 10–12 (opinion of GINSBURG, J.). However, 

the very legislative history cited by the dissent explains that this 

amendment and the other 1991 Title VII amendments “ ‘expand[ed] the 

scope of relevant civil rights statutes in order to provide adequate

protection to victims of discrimination.’ ” Post, at 11 (emphasis added).

For present purposes, what is most important about the amendment in

question is that it applied only to the adoption of a discriminatory

seniority system, not to other types of employment discrimination. 

Evans and Ricks, upon which Lorance relied, 490 U. S., at 906–908, and 

which employed identical reasoning, were left in place, and these 

decisions are more than sufficient to support our holding today. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

not commence, upon the occurrence of subsequent nondiscriminatory acts that entail adverse effects resulting

from the past discrimination. But of course, if an employer engages in a series of acts each of which is intentionally discriminatory, then a fresh violation takes place 

when each act is committed. See Morgan, supra, at 113. 

Ledbetter’s arguments here—that the paychecks that

she received during the charging period and the 1998 raise 

denial each violated Title VII and triggered a new EEOC 

charging period—cannot be reconciled with Evans, Ricks, 

Lorance, and Morgan. Ledbetter, as noted, makes no 

claim that intentionally discriminatory conduct occurred 

during the charging period or that discriminatory decisions that occurred prior to that period were not communicated to her. Instead, she argues simply that Goodyear’s

conduct during the charging period gave present effect to

discriminatory conduct outside of that period. Brief for 

Petitioner 13. But current effects alone cannot breathe 

life into prior, uncharged discrimination; as we held in 

Evans, such effects in themselves have “no present legal 

consequences.” 431 U. S., at 558. Ledbetter should have 

filed an EEOC charge within 180 days after each allegedly 

discriminatory pay decision was made and communicated 

to her. She did not do so, and the paychecks that were 

issued to her during the 180 days prior to the filing of her 

EEOC charge do not provide a basis for overcoming that

prior failure.

In an effort to circumvent the need to prove discriminatory intent during the charging period, Ledbetter relies on

the intent associated with other decisions made by other

persons at other times. Reply Brief for Petitioner 6 (“Intentional discrimination . . . occurs when . . . differential treatment takes place, even if the intent to engage in that conduct for a discriminatory purpose was made previously”). 

Ledbetter’s attempt to take the intent associated with

the prior pay decisions and shift it to the 1998 pay deci-
10 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

sion is unsound. It would shift intent from one act (the act 

that consummates the discriminatory employment practice) to a later act that was not performed with bias or

discriminatory motive. The effect of this shift would be to 

impose liability in the absence of the requisite intent. 

Our cases recognize this point. In Evans, for example, 

we did not take the airline’s discriminatory intent in 1968,

when it discharged the plaintiff because of her sex, and 

attach that intent to its later act of neutrally applying its

seniority rules. Similarly, in Ricks, we did not take the 

discriminatory intent that the college allegedly possessed 

when it denied Ricks tenure and attach that intent to its 

subsequent act of terminating his employment when his

nonrenewable contract ran out. On the contrary, we held 

that “the only alleged discrimination occurred—and the

filing limitations periods therefore commenced—at the 

time the tenure decision was made and communicated to 

Ricks.” 449 U. S., at 258. 

Not only would Ledbetter’s argument effectively eliminate the defining element of her disparate-treatment 

claim, but it would distort Title VII’s “integrated,

multistep enforcement procedure.” Occidental Life Ins. 

Co. of Cal. v. EEOC, 432 U. S. 355, 359 (1977). We have 

previously noted the legislative compromises that preceded the enactment of Title VII, Mohasco Corp. v. Silver, 

447 U. S. 807, 819–821 (1980); EEOC v. Commercial Office 

Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 126 (1988) (STEVENS, J., 

joined by Rehnquist, C. J., and SCALIA, J., dissenting). 

Respectful of the legislative process that crafted this

scheme, we must “give effect to the statute as enacted,” 

Mohasco, supra, at 819, and we have repeatedly rejected 

suggestions that we extend or truncate Congress’ deadlines. See, e.g., Electrical Workers v. Robbins & Myers, 

Inc., 429 U. S. 229, 236–240 (1976) (union grievance procedures do not toll EEOC filing deadline); Alexander v. 

Gardner-Denver Co., 415 U. S. 36, 47–49 (1974) (arbitral 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 11 

Opinion of the Court 

decisions do not foreclose access to court following a timely

filed EEOC complaint). 

Statutes of limitations serve a policy of repose. American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U. S. 538, 554–555 

(1974). They 

“represent a pervasive legislative judgment that it is 

unjust to fail to put the adversary on notice to defend 

within a specified period of time and that ‘the right to 

be free of stale claims in time comes to prevail over

the right to prosecute them.’” United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111, 117 (1979) (quoting Railroad 

Telegraphers v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 321 

U. S. 342, 349 (1944)). 

The EEOC filing deadline “protect[s] employers from the

burden of defending claims arising from employment

decisions that are long past.” Ricks, supra, at 256–257. 

Certainly, the 180-day EEOC charging deadline, 42 

U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(1), is short by any measure, but “[b]y 

choosing what are obviously quite short deadlines, Congress clearly intended to encourage the prompt processing

of all charges of employment discrimination.” Mohasco, 

supra, at 825. This short deadline reflects Congress’ 

strong preference for the prompt resolution of employment 

discrimination allegations through voluntary conciliation 

and cooperation. Occidental Life Ins., supra, at 367–368; 

Alexander, supra, at 44. 

A disparate-treatment claim comprises two elements: an

employment practice, and discriminatory intent. Nothing

in Title VII supports treating the intent element of

Ledbetter’s claim any differently from the employment

practice element.3 If anything, concerns regarding stale 

—————— 

3Of course, there may be instances where the elements forming a 

cause of action span more than 180 days. Say, for instance, an employer forms an illegal discriminatory intent towards an employee but

does not act on it until 181 days later. The charging period would not 
12 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

claims weigh more heavily with respect to proof of the 

intent associated with employment practices than with the

practices themselves. For example, in a case such as this 

in which the plaintiff’s claim concerns the denial of raises, 

the employer’s challenged acts (the decisions not to increase the employee’s pay at the times in question) will 

almost always be documented and will typically not even

be in dispute. By contrast, the employer’s intent is almost 

always disputed, and evidence relating to intent may fade 

quickly with time. In most disparate-treatment cases,

much if not all of the evidence of intent is circumstantial. 

Thus, the critical issue in a case involving a long-past 

performance evaluation will often be whether the evaluation was so far off the mark that a sufficient inference of 

discriminatory intent can be drawn. See Watson, 487 

U. S., at 1004 (Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) 

(noting that in a disparate-treatment claim, the McDonnell Douglas factors establish discrimination by inference). 

See also, e.g., Zhuang v. Datacard Corp., 414 F. 3d 849 

(CA8 2005) (rejecting inference of discrimination from

performance evaluations); Cooper v. Southern Co., 390 

F. 3d 695, 732–733 (CA11 2004) (same). This can be a 

subtle determination, and the passage of time may seriously diminish the ability of the parties and the factfinder

to reconstruct what actually happened.4 

—————— 

begin to run until the employment practice was executed on day 181 

because until that point the employee had no cause of action. The act 

and intent had not yet been joined. Here, by contrast, Ledbetter’s 

cause of action was fully formed and present at the time that the

discriminatory employment actions were taken against her, at which 

point she could have, and should have, sued. 4The dissent dismisses this concern, post, at 15–16, but this case 

illustrates the problems created by tardy lawsuits. Ledbetter’s claims 

of sex discrimination turned principally on the misconduct of a single 

Goodyear supervisor, who, Ledbetter testified, retaliated against her

when she rejected his sexual advances during the early 1980’s, and did 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 13 

Opinion of the Court 

Ledbetter contends that employers would be protected

by the equitable doctrine of laches, but Congress plainly 

did not think that laches was sufficient in this context. 

Indeed, Congress took a diametrically different approach,

including in Title VII a provision allowing only a few 

months in most cases to file a charge with the EEOC. 42 

U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(1).

Ultimately, “experience teaches that strict adherence 

to the procedural requirements specified by the legislature is the best guarantee of evenhanded administration

of the law.” Mohasco, 447 U. S., at 826. By operation of

§§2000e–5(e)(1) and 2000e–5(f)(1), a Title VII “claim is 

time barred if it is not filed within these time limits.” 

Morgan, 536 U. S., at 109; Electrical Workers, 429 U. S., 

at 236. We therefore reject the suggestion that an employment practice committed with no improper purpose 

and no discriminatory intent is rendered unlawful nonetheless because it gives some effect to an intentional 

discriminatory act that occurred outside the charging 

period. Ledbetter’s claim is, for this reason, untimely. 

III 

A 

In advancing her two theories Ledbetter does not seriously contest the logic of Evans, Ricks, Lorance, and Morgan as set out above, but rather argues that our decision 

in Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385 (1986) (per curiam), 

requires different treatment of her claim because it relates 

to pay. Ledbetter focuses specifically on our statement 

—————— 

so again in the mid-1990’s when he falsified deficiency reports about 

her work. His misconduct, Ledbetter argues, was “a principal basis for 

[her] performance evaluation in 1997.” Brief for Petitioner 6; see also 

id., at 5–6, 8, 11 (stressing the same supervisor’s misconduct). Yet, by

the time of trial, this supervisor had died and therefore could not 

testify. A timely charge might have permitted his evidence to be

weighed contemporaneously. 
14 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

that “[e]ach week’s paycheck that delivers less to a black 

than to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable

under Title VII.” Id., at 395. She argues that in Bazemore 

we adopted a “paycheck accrual rule” under which each

paycheck, even if not accompanied by discriminatory 

intent, triggers a new EEOC charging period during which

the complainant may properly challenge any prior discriminatory conduct that impacted the amount of that 

paycheck, no matter how long ago the discrimination

occurred. On this reading, Bazemore dispensed with the

need to prove actual discriminatory intent in pay cases

and, without giving any hint that it was doing so, repudiated the very different approach taken previously in Evans and Ricks. Ledbetter’s interpretation is unsound. 

Bazemore concerned a disparate-treatment pay claim

brought against the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service (Service). 478 U. S., at 389–390. Service 

employees were originally segregated into “a white 

branch” and “a ‘Negro branch,’” with the latter receiving 

less pay, but in 1965 the two branches were merged. Id., 

at 390–391. After Title VII was extended to public employees in 1972, black employees brought suit claiming 

that pay disparities attributable to the old dual pay scale 

persisted. Id., at 391. The Court of Appeals rejected this

claim, which it interpreted to be that the “‘discriminatory

difference in salaries should have been affirmatively

eliminated.’” Id., at 395. 

This Court reversed in a per curiam opinion, 478 U. S., 

at 386–388, but all of the Members of the Court joined 

Justice Brennan’s separate opinion, see id., at 388 (opinion concurring in part). Justice Brennan wrote: 

“The error of the Court of Appeals with respect to salary disparities created prior to 1972 and perpetuated

thereafter is too obvious to warrant extended discussion: that the Extension Service discriminated with 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 15 

Opinion of the Court 

respect to salaries prior to the time it was covered by

Title VII does not excuse perpetuating that discrimination after the Extension Service became covered by 

Title VII. To hold otherwise would have the effect of 

exempting from liability those employers who were 

historically the greatest offenders of the rights of 

blacks. A pattern or practice that would have constituted a violation of Title VII, but for the fact that the 

statute had not yet become effective, became a violation upon Title VII’s effective date, and to the extent

an employer continued to engage in that act or practice, it is liable under that statute. While recovery 

may not be permitted for pre-1972 acts of discrimination, to the extent that this discrimination was perpetuated after 1972, liability may be imposed.” Id., at 

395 (emphasis in original). 

Far from adopting the approach that Ledbetter advances here, this passage made a point that was “too 

obvious to warrant extended discussion,” ibid.; namely,

that when an employer adopts a facially discriminatory 

pay structure that puts some employees on a lower scale

because of race, the employer engages in intentional discrimination whenever it issues a check to one of these 

disfavored employees. An employer that adopts and intentionally retains such a pay structure can surely be regarded as intending to discriminate on the basis of race as

long as the structure is used. 

Bazemore thus is entirely consistent with our prior

precedents, as Justice Brennan’s opinion took care to point 

out. Noting that Evans turned on whether “‘any present 

violation exist[ed],’” Justice Brennan stated that the 

Bazemore plaintiffs were alleging that the defendants

“ha[d] not from the date of the Act forward made all their 

employment decisions in a wholly nondiscriminatory way,” 

478 U. S., at 396–397, n. 6 (emphasis in original; internal 
16 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

quotation marks and brackets omitted)–which is to say 

that they had engaged in fresh discrimination. Justice 

Brennan added that the Court’s “holding in no sense 

g[ave] legal effect to the pre-1972 actions, but, consistent 

with Evans . . . focuse[d] on the present salary structure, 

which is illegal if it is a mere continuation of the pre-1965 

discriminatory pay structure.” Id., at 397, n. 6 (emphasis 

added).

The sentence in Justice Brennan’s opinion on which

Ledbetter chiefly relies comes directly after the passage 

quoted above, and makes a similarly obvious point: 

“Each week’s paycheck that delivers less to a black 

than to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable under Title VII, regardless of the fact that this 

pattern was begun prior to the effective date of Title 

VII.” Id., at 395.5 

—————— 

5That the focus in Bazemore was on a current violation, not the carrying forward of a past act of discrimination, was made clearly by the 

side opinion in the Court of Appeals: 

“[T]he majority holds, in effect, that because the pattern of discriminatory salaries here challenged originated before applicable provisions of

the Civil Rights Act made their payment illegal, any ‘lingering effects’ 

of that earlier pattern cannot (presumably on an indefinitely maintained basis) be considered in assessing a challenge to post-act continuation of that pattern.

“Hazelwood and Evans indeed made it clear that an employer cannot

be found liable, or sanctioned with remedy, for employment decisions

made before they were declared illegal or as to which the claimant has 

lost any right of action by lapse of time. For this reason it is generally

true that, as the catch-phrase has it, Title VII imposed ‘no obligation to 

catch-up,’ i.e., affirmatively to remedy present effects of pre-Act discrimination, whether in composing a work force or otherwise. But 

those cases cannot be thought to insulate employment decisions that

presently are illegal on the basis that at one time comparable decisions 

were legal when made by the particular employer. It is therefore one 

thing to say that an employer who upon the effective date of Title VII 

finds itself with a racially unbalanced work-force need not act affirmatively to redress the balance; and quite another to say that it may also 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 17 

Opinion of the Court 

In other words, a freestanding violation may always be

charged within its own charging period regardless of its

connection to other violations. We repeated this same

point more recently in Morgan: “The existence of past acts

and the employee’s prior knowledge of their occurrence . . . 

does not bar employees from filing charges about related 

discrete acts so long as the acts are independently discriminatory and charges addressing those acts are themselves timely filed.” 536 U. S., at 113.6 Neither of these 

opinions stands for the proposition that an action not 

comprising an employment practice and alleged discriminatory intent is separately chargeable, just because it is 

related to some past act of discrimination.

Ledbetter attempts to eliminate the obvious inconsistencies between her interpretation of Bazemore and the 

Evans/Ricks/Lorance/Morgan line of cases on the ground 

that none of the latter cases involved pay raises, but the 

logic of our prior cases is fully applicable to pay cases. To 

take Evans as an example, the employee there was unlawfully terminated; this caused her to lose seniority; and the 

loss of seniority affected her wages, among other things. 

431 U. S., at 555, n. 5 (“[S]eniority determine[s] a flight 

—————— 

continue to make discriminatory hiring decisions because it was by that

means that its present work force was composed. It may not, in short, 

under the Hazelwood/Evans principle continue practices now violative

simply because at one time they were not.” Bazemore v. Friday, 751 

F. 2d 662, 695–696 (CA4 1984) (Phillips, J., concurring in part and

dissenting in part) (emphasis in original; footnotes omitted). 6The briefs filed with this Court in Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U. S. 385 

(1986) (per curiam), further elucidate the point. The petitioners described the Service’s conduct as “[t]he continued use of a racially 

explicit base wage.” Brief for Petitioner Bazemore et al. in Bazemore v. 

Friday, O. T. 1985, No. 85–93, p. 33. The United States’ brief also 

properly distinguished the commission of a discrete discriminatory act 

with continuing adverse results from the intentional carrying forward 

of a discriminatory pay system. Brief for Federal Petitioners in 

Bazemore v. Friday, O. T. 1984, Nos. 85–93 and 85–428, p. 17. This 

case involves the former, not the latter. 
18 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

attendant’s wages; the duration and timing of vacations; 

rights to retention in the event of layoffs and rights to reemployment thereafter; and rights to preferential selection

of flight assignments”). The relationship between past 

discrimination and adverse present effects was the same 

in Evans as it is here. Thus, the argument that Ledbetter 

urges us to accept here would necessarily have commanded a different outcome in Evans. 

Bazemore stands for the proposition that an employer 

violates Title VII and triggers a new EEOC charging 

period whenever the employer issues paychecks using a 

discriminatory pay structure. But a new Title VII violation does not occur and a new charging period is not triggered when an employer issues paychecks pursuant to a

system that is “facially nondiscriminatory and neutrally 

applied.” Lorance, 490 U. S., at 911. The fact that precharging period discrimination adversely affects the calculation of a neutral factor (like seniority) that is used in

determining future pay does not mean that each new

paycheck constitutes a new violation and restarts the 

EEOC charging period.

Because Ledbetter has not adduced evidence that Goodyear initially adopted its performance-based pay system in 

order to discriminate on the basis of sex or that it later 

applied this system to her within the charging period with 

any discriminatory animus, Bazemore is of no help to her.

Rather, all Ledbetter has alleged is that Goodyear’s agents 

discriminated against her individually in the past and 

that this discrimination reduced the amount of later paychecks. Because Ledbetter did not file timely EEOC 

charges relating to her employer’s discriminatory pay

decisions in the past, she cannot maintain a suit based on 

that past discrimination at this time. 

B 

The dissent also argues that pay claims are different. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 19 

Opinion of the Court 

Its principal argument is that a pay discrimination claim

is like a hostile work environment claim because both 

types of claims are “‘based on the cumulative effect of

individual acts,’” post, at 6–7, but this analogy overlooks

the critical conceptual distinction between these two types 

of claims. And although the dissent relies heavily on 

Morgan, the dissent’s argument is fundamentally inconsistent with Morgan’s reasoning. 

Morgan distinguished between “discrete” acts of discrimination and a hostile work environment. A discrete 

act of discrimination is an act that in itself “constitutes a 

separate actionable ‘unlawful employment practice’” and

that is temporally distinct. Morgan, 536 U. S., at 114, 

117. As examples we identified “termination, failure to

promote, denial of transfer, or refusal to hire.” Id., at 114. 

A hostile work environment, on the other hand, typically 

comprises a succession of harassing acts, each of which

“may not be actionable on its own.” In addition, a hostile

work environment claim “cannot be said to occur on any 

particular day.” Id., at 115–116. In other words, the 

actionable wrong is the environment, not the individual 

acts that, taken together, create the environment.7 

Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, post, at 6–7, what 

Ledbetter alleged was not a single wrong consisting of a

succession of acts. Instead, she alleged a series of discrete

discriminatory acts, see Brief for Petitioner 13, 15 (arguing that payment of each paycheck constituted a separate 

—————— 

7Moreover, the proposed hostile salary environment claim would go 

far beyond Morgan’s limits. Morgan still required at least some of the

discriminatorily-motivated acts predicate to a hostile work environment

claim to occur within the charging period. 536 U. S., at 117 (“Provided 

that an act contributing to the claim occurs within the filing period, the 

entire time period of the hostile environment may be considered by a 

court” (emphasis added)). But the dissent would permit claims where 

no one acted in any way with an improper motive during the charging

period. Post, at 7, 16. 
20 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

violation of Title VII), each of which was independently

identifiable and actionable, and Morgan is perfectly clear

that when an employee alleges “serial violations,” i.e., a 

series of actionable wrongs, a timely EEOC charge must

be filed with respect to each discrete alleged violation. 536 

U. S., at 113. 

While this fundamental misinterpretation of Morgan is 

alone sufficient to show that the dissent’s approach must 

be rejected, it should also be noted that the dissent is coy 

as to whether it would apply the same rule to all pay 

discrimination claims or whether it would limit the rule to 

cases like Ledbetter’s, in which multiple discriminatory 

pay decisions are alleged. The dissent relies on the fact 

that Ledbetter was allegedly subjected to a series of discriminatory pay decisions over a period of time, and the 

dissent suggests that she did not realize for some time 

that she had been victimized. But not all pay cases share

these characteristics. 

If, as seems likely, the dissent would apply the same

rule in all pay cases, then, if a single discriminatory pay 

decision made 20 years ago continued to affect an employee’s pay today, the dissent would presumably hold 

that the employee could file a timely EEOC charge today.

And the dissent would presumably allow this even if the

employee had full knowledge of all the circumstances

relating to the 20-year-old decision at the time it was 

made.8 The dissent, it appears, proposes that we adopt a

special rule for pay cases based on the particular charac-

—————— 

8The dissent admits as much, responding only that an employer

could resort to equitable doctrines such as laches. Post, at 16. But 

first, as we have noted, Congress has already determined that defense

to be insufficient. Supra, at 13. Second, it is far from clear that a suit 

filed under the dissent’s theory, alleging that a paycheck paid recently 

within the charging period was itself a freestanding violation of Title

VII because it reflected the effects of 20-year-old discrimination, would

even be barred by laches. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 21 

Opinion of the Court 

teristics of one case that is certainly not representative of

all pay cases and may not even be typical. We refuse to 

take that approach. 

IV 

In addition to the arguments previously discussed, 

Ledbetter relies largely on analogies to other statutory 

regimes and on extrastatutory policy arguments to support her “paycheck accrual rule.” 

A 

Ledbetter places significant weight on the EPA, which

was enacted contemporaneously with Title VII and prohibits paying unequal wages for equal work because of sex. 

29 U. S. C. §206(d). Stating that “the lower courts routinely hear [EPA] claims challenging pay disparities that 

first arose outside the limitations period,” Ledbetter suggests that we should hold that Title VII is violated each 

time an employee receives a paycheck that reflects past

discrimination. Brief for Petitioner 34–35. 

The simple answer to this argument is that the EPA

and Title VII are not the same. In particular, the EPA

does not require the filing of a charge with the EEOC or

proof of intentional discrimination. See §206(d)(1) (asking 

only whether the alleged inequality resulted from “any

other factor other than sex”). Ledbetter originally asserted an EPA claim, but that claim was dismissed by the

District Court and is not before us. If Ledbetter had pursued her EPA claim, she would not face the Title VII 

obstacles that she now confronts.9 

—————— 

9The Magistrate Judge recommended dismissal of Ledbetter’s EPA 

claim on the ground that Goodyear had demonstrated that the pay 

disparity resulted from Ledbetter’s consistently weak performance, not 

her sex. App. to Pet. for Cert. 71a–77a. The Magistrate Judge also

recommended dismissing the Title VII disparate-pay claim on the same

basis. Id., at 65a–69a. Ledbetter objected to the Magistrate Judge’s

disposition of the Title VII and EPA claims, arguing that the Magis-
22 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

Ledbetter’s appeal to the Fair Labor Standards Act of

1938 (FLSA) is equally unavailing. Stating that it is “well

established that the statute of limitations for violations of 

the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the [FLSA]

runs anew with each paycheck,” Brief for Petitioner 35, 

Ledbetter urges that the same should be true in a Title

VII pay case. Again, however, Ledbetter’s argument

overlooks the fact that an FLSA minimum wage or overtime claim does not require proof of a specific intent to 

discriminate. See 29 U. S. C. §207 (establishing overtime

rules); cf. §255(a) (establishing 2-year statute of limitations for FLSA claims, except for claims of a “willful violation,” which may be commenced within 3 years). 

Ledbetter is on firmer ground in suggesting that we look

to cases arising under the National Labor Relations Act 

(NLRA) since the NLRA provided a model for Title VII’s 

remedial provisions and, like Title VII, requires the filing 

of a timely administrative charge (with the National Labor 

Relations Board) before suit may be maintained. Lorance, 

490 U. S., at 909; Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U. S. 219, 

226, n. 8 (1982). Cf. 29 U. S. C. §160(b) (“[N]o complaint 

shall issue based upon any unfair labor practice occurring

more than six months prior to the filing of the charge with

the Board”).

Ledbetter argues that the NLRA’s 6-month statute of 

limitations begins anew for each paycheck reflecting a

prior violation of the statute, but our precedents suggest 

—————— 

trate Judge had improperly resolved a disputed factual issue. See 

Plaintiff’s Objections to Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation, 1 Record in No. 03–15246–G (CA11), Doc. 32. The District Court 

sustained this objection as to the “disparate pay” claim, but without 

specifically mentioning the EPA claim, which had been dismissed by

the Magistrate Judge on the same basis. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 43a– 

44a. While the record is not entirely clear, it appears that at this point

Ledbetter elected to abandon her EPA claim, proceeding to trial with

only the Title VII disparate-pay claim, thus giving rise to the dispute 

the Court must now resolve. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 23 

Opinion of the Court 

otherwise. In Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411, 416–417 

(1960), we held that “where conduct occurring within the

limitations period can be charged to be an unfair labor 

practice only through reliance on an earlier unfair labor 

practice[,] the use of the earlier unfair labor practice

[merely] serves to cloak with illegality that which was

otherwise lawful.” This interpretation corresponds closely 

to our analysis in Evans and Ricks and supports our holding in the present case. 

B 

Ledbetter, finally, makes a variety of policy arguments

in favor of giving the alleged victims of pay discrimination

more time before they are required to file a charge with 

the EEOC. Among other things, she claims that pay

discrimination is harder to detect than other forms of 

employment discrimination.10 

We are not in a position to evaluate Ledbetter’s policy

arguments, and it is not our prerogative to change the way

in which Title VII balances the interests of aggrieved

employees against the interest in encouraging the “prompt

processing of all charges of employment discrimination,” 

Mohasco, 447 U. S., at 825, and the interest in repose. 

Ledbetter’s policy arguments for giving special treatment to pay claims find no support in the statute and are

inconsistent with our precedents.11 We apply the statute 

—————— 

10We have previously declined to address whether Title VII suits are

amenable to a discovery rule. National Railroad Passenger Corporation 

v. Morgan, 536 U. S. 101, 114, n. 7 (2002). Because Ledbetter does not 

argue that such a rule would change the outcome in her case, we have

no occasion to address this issue. 11Ledbetter argues that the EEOC’s endorsement of her approach in 

its Compliance Manual and in administrative adjudications merits 

deference. But we have previously declined to extend Chevron deference to the Compliance Manual, Morgan, supra, at 111, n. 6, and 

similarly decline to defer to the EEOC’s adjudicatory positions. The 

EEOC’s views in question are based on its misreading of Bazemore. 
24 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

Opinion of the Court 

as written, and this means that any unlawful employment

practice, including those involving compensation, must be 

presented to the EEOC within the period prescribed by 

statute. 

* * * 

For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals 

for the Eleventh Circuit is affirmed. 

It is so ordered. 

—————— 

See, e.g., Amft v. Mineta, No. 07A40116, 2006 WL 985183, *5 (EEOC 

Office of Fed. Operations, Apr. 6, 2006); Albritton v. Postmaster General, No. 01A44063, 2004 WL 2983682, *2 (EEOC Office of Fed. Operations, Dec. 17, 2004). Agencies have no special claim to deference in

their interpretation of our decisions. Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd., 

528 U. S. 320, 336, n. 5 (2000). Nor do we see reasonable ambiguity in

the statute itself, which makes no distinction between compensation 

and other sorts of claims and which clearly requires that discrete

employment actions alleged to be unlawful be motivated “because of 

such individual’s . . . sex.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–a(a)(1). 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 1 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 05–1074 

LILLY M. LEDBETTER, PETITIONER v. THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, INC. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

[May 29, 2007] 

JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, 

JUSTICE SOUTER, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting. 

Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and 

Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her 

retirement in 1998. For most of those years, she worked

as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men.

Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of 

men performing substantially similar work. Over time, 

however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male 

area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 

1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area

manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and 

her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid

$3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager

received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236. See 

421 F. 3d 1169, 1174 (CA11 2005); Brief for Petitioner 4.

Ledbetter launched charges of discrimination before the 

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in

March 1998. Her formal administrative complaint specified that, in violation of Title VII, Goodyear paid her a 

discriminatorily low salary because of her sex. See 42 

U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)(1) (rendering it unlawful for an employer “to discriminate against any individual with respect 

to [her] compensation . . . because of such individual’s . . . 

sex”). That charge was eventually tried to a jury, which 
2 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

found it “more likely than not that [Goodyear] paid 

[Ledbetter] a[n] unequal salary because of her sex.” App.

102. In accord with the jury’s liability determination, the 

District Court entered judgment for Ledbetter for backpay

and damages, plus counsel fees and costs.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed.

Relying on Goodyear’s system of annual merit-based 

raises, the court held that Ledbetter’s claim, in relevant 

part, was time barred. 421 F. 3d, at 1171, 1182–1183. 

Title VII provides that a charge of discrimination “shall be

filed within [180] days after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(1).1 

Ledbetter charged, and proved at trial, that within the 

180-day period, her pay was substantially less than the 

pay of men doing the same work. Further, she introduced 

evidence sufficient to establish that discrimination against

female managers at the Gadsden plant, not performance

inadequacies on her part, accounted for the pay differential. See, e.g., App. 36–47, 51–68, 82–87, 90–98, 112–113. 

That evidence was unavailing, the Eleventh Circuit held,

and the Court today agrees, because it was incumbent on 

Ledbetter to file charges year-by-year, each time Goodyear 

failed to increase her salary commensurate with the salaries of male peers. Any annual pay decision not contested 

immediately (within 180 days), the Court affirms, becomes

grandfathered, a fait accompli beyond the province of Title

VII ever to repair.

The Court’s insistence on immediate contest overlooks 

common characteristics of pay discrimination. Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in

small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is 

—————— 

1 If the complainant has first instituted proceedings with a state or

local agency, the filing period is extended to 300 days or 30 days after

the denial of relief by the agency. 42 U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(1). Because 

the 180-day period applies to Ledbetter’s case, that figure will be used 

throughout. See ante, at 3, 4. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s 

view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons

for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not 

be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the 

employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.

Pay disparities are thus significantly different from 

adverse actions “such as termination, failure to promote, 

. . . or refusal to hire,” all involving fully communicated

discrete acts, “easy to identify” as discriminatory. See 

National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Morgan, 536 

U. S. 101, 114 (2002). It is only when the disparity becomes apparent and sizable, e.g., through future raises

calculated as a percentage of current salaries, that an

employee in Ledbetter’s situation is likely to comprehend 

her plight and, therefore, to complain. Her initial readiness to give her employer the benefit of the doubt should 

not preclude her from later challenging the then current

and continuing payment of a wage depressed on account of

her sex. 

On questions of time under Title VII, we have identified

as the critical inquiries: “What constitutes an ‘unlawful

employment practice’ and when has that practice ‘occurred’?” Id., at 110. Our precedent suggests, and lower 

courts have overwhelmingly held, that the unlawful practice is the current payment of salaries infected by genderbased (or race-based) discrimination—a practice that

occurs whenever a paycheck delivers less to a woman than

to a similarly situated man. See Bazemore v. Friday, 478 

U. S. 385, 395 (1986) (Brennan, J., joined by all other 

Members of the Court, concurring in part). 

I 

Title VII proscribes as an “unlawful employment prac-
4 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

tice” discrimination “against any individual with respect

to his compensation . . . because of such individual’s race, 

color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e– 

2(a)(1). An individual seeking to challenge an employment 

practice under this proscription must file a charge with 

the EEOC within 180 days “after the alleged unlawful 

employment practice occurred.” §2000e–5(e)(1). See ante, 

at 4; supra, at 2, n. 1.

 Ledbetter’s petition presents a question important to the

sound application of Title VII: What activity qualifies as 

an unlawful employment practice in cases of discrimination with respect to compensation. One answer identifies 

the pay-setting decision, and that decision alone, as the

unlawful practice. Under this view, each particular salary-setting decision is discrete from prior and subsequent 

decisions, and must be challenged within 180 days on pain

of forfeiture. Another response counts both the paysetting decision and the actual payment of a discriminatory wage as unlawful practices. Under this approach,

each payment of a wage or salary infected by sex-based

discrimination constitutes an unlawful employment practice; prior decisions, outside the 180-day charge-filing 

period, are not themselves actionable, but they are relevant in determining the lawfulness of conduct within the 

period. The Court adopts the first view, see ante, at 1, 4, 

9, but the second is more faithful to precedent, more in

tune with the realities of the workplace, and more respectful of Title VII’s remedial purpose. 

A 

In Bazemore, we unanimously held that an employer, 

the North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service, committed an unlawful employment practice each time it paid

black employees less than similarly situated white employees. 478 U. S., at 395 (opinion of Brennan, J.). Before 

1965, the Extension Service was divided into two 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 5 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

branches: a white branch and a “Negro branch.” Id., at 

390. Employees in the “Negro branch” were paid less than 

their white counterparts. In response to the Civil Rights

Act of 1964, which included Title VII, the State merged

the two branches into a single organization, made adjustments to reduce the salary disparity, and began giving 

annual raises based on nondiscriminatory factors. Id., at 

390–391, 394–395. Nonetheless, “some pre-existing salary 

disparities continued to linger on.” Id., at 394 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We rejected the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the plaintiffs could not prevail because the lingering disparities were simply a continuing

effect of a decision lawfully made prior to the effective date

of Title VII. See id., at 395–396. Rather, we reasoned, 

“[e]ach week’s paycheck that delivers less to a black than

to a similarly situated white is a wrong actionable under 

Title VII.” Id., at 395. Paychecks perpetuating past discrimination, we thus recognized, are actionable not simply

because they are “related” to a decision made outside the 

charge-filing period, cf. ante, at 17, but because they discriminate anew each time they issue, see Bazemore, 478 

U. S., at 395–396, and n. 6; Morgan, 536 U. S., at 111–112. 

 Subsequently, in Morgan, we set apart, for purposes of 

Title VII’s timely filing requirement, unlawful employment actions of two kinds: “discrete acts” that are “easy to

identify” as discriminatory, and acts that recur and are 

cumulative in impact. See id., at 110, 113–115. “[A]

[d]iscrete ac[t] such as termination, failure to promote,

denial of transfer, or refusal to hire,” id., at 114, we explained, “‘occur[s]’ on the day that it ‘happen[s].’ A party,

therefore, must file a charge within . . . 180 . . . days of the

date of the act or lose the ability to recover for it.” Id., at 

110; see id., at 113 (“[D]iscrete discriminatory acts are not 

actionable if time barred, even when they are related to 

acts alleged in timely filed charges. Each discrete discriminatory act starts a new clock for filing charges alleg-
6 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ing that act.”).

“[D]ifferent in kind from discrete acts,” we made clear,

are “claims . . . based on the cumulative effect of individual acts.” Id., at 115. The Morgan decision placed hostile 

work environment claims in that category. “Their very 

nature involves repeated conduct.” Ibid. “The unlawful 

employment practice” in hostile work environment claims, 

“cannot be said to occur on any particular day. It occurs 

over a series of days or perhaps years and, in direct contrast to discrete acts, a single act of harassment may not 

be actionable on its own.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The persistence of the discriminatory conduct

both indicates that management should have known of its 

existence and produces a cognizable harm. Ibid. Because 

the very nature of the hostile work environment claim 

involves repeated conduct, 

“[i]t does not matter, for purposes of the statute, that

some of the component acts of the hostile work environment fall outside the statutory time period. Provided that an act contributing to the claim occurs

within the filing period, the entire time period of the

hostile environment may be considered by a court for 

the purposes of determining liability.” Id., at 117. 

Consequently, although the unlawful conduct began in the 

past, “a charge may be filed at a later date and still encompass the whole.” Ibid. 

Pay disparities, of the kind Ledbetter experienced, have 

a closer kinship to hostile work environment claims than 

to charges of a single episode of discrimination. 

Ledbetter’s claim, resembling Morgan’s, rested not on one 

particular paycheck, but on “the cumulative effect of individual acts.” See id., at 115. See also Brief for Petitioner 

13, 15–17, and n. 9 (analogizing Ledbetter’s claim to the

recurring and cumulative harm at issue in Morgan); Reply 

Brief for Petitioner 13 (distinguishing pay discrimination 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 7 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

from “easy to identify” discrete acts (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). She charged insidious discrimination

building up slowly but steadily. See Brief for Petitioner 5– 

8. Initially in line with the salaries of men performing 

substantially the same work, Ledbetter’s salary fell 15 to

40 percent behind her male counterparts only after successive evaluations and percentage-based pay adjustments. See supra, at 1–2. Over time, she alleged and 

proved, the repetition of pay decisions undervaluing her 

work gave rise to the current discrimination of which she 

complained. Though component acts fell outside the 

charge-filing period, with each new paycheck, Goodyear

contributed incrementally to the accumulating harm. See 

Morgan, 536 U. S., at 117; Bazemore, 478 U. S., at 395– 

396; cf. Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery 

Corp., 392 U. S. 481, 502, n. 15 (1968).2 

B 

The realities of the workplace reveal why the discrimination with respect to compensation that Ledbetter suffered does not fit within the category of singular discrete 

acts “easy to identify.” A worker knows immediately if she 

is denied a promotion or transfer, if she is fired or refused 

employment. And promotions, transfers, hirings, and 

firings are generally public events, known to co-workers.

When an employer makes a decision of such open and 

definitive character, an employee can immediately seek 

out an explanation and evaluate it for pretext. Compensation disparities, in contrast, are often hidden from sight. 

—————— 

2 National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Morgan, 536 U. S. 101, 

117 (2002), the Court emphasizes, required that “an act contributing to 

the claim occu[r] within the [charge-]filing period.” Ante, at 19, and n. 7 

(emphasis deleted; internal quotation marks omitted). Here, each 

paycheck within the filing period compounded the discrimination

Ledbetter encountered, and thus contributed to the “actionable wrong,” 

i.e., the succession of acts composing the pattern of discriminatory pay,

of which she complained. 
8 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

It is not unusual, decisions in point illustrate, for management to decline to publish employee pay levels, or for 

employees to keep private their own salaries. See, e.g., 

Goodwin v. General Motors Corp., 275 F. 3d 1005, 1008– 

1009 (CA10 2002) (plaintiff did not know what her colleagues earned until a printout listing of salaries appeared 

on her desk, seven years after her starting salary was set 

lower than her co-workers’ salaries); McMillan v. Massachusetts Soc. for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 140 

F. 3d 288, 296 (CA1 1998) (plaintiff worked for employer 

for years before learning of salary disparity published in a

newspaper).3 Tellingly, as the record in this case bears

out, Goodyear kept salaries confidential; employees had 

only limited access to information regarding their colleagues’ earnings. App. 56–57, 89.

The problem of concealed pay discrimination is particularly acute where the disparity arises not because the

female employee is flatly denied a raise but because male

counterparts are given larger raises. Having received a

pay increase, the female employee is unlikely to discern at 

once that she has experienced an adverse employment 

decision. She may have little reason even to suspect discrimination until a pattern develops incrementally and 

she ultimately becomes aware of the disparity. Even if an 

employee suspects that the reason for a comparatively low

raise is not performance but sex (or another protected 

ground), the amount involved may seem too small, or the

employer’s intent too ambiguous, to make the issue immediately actionable—or winnable. 

Further separating pay claims from the discrete em-

—————— 

3See also Bierman & Gely, “Love, Sex and Politics? Sure. Salary? No 

Way”: Workplace Social Norms and the Law, 25 Berkeley J. Emp. &

Lab. L. 167, 168, 171 (2004) (one-third of private sector employers have

adopted specific rules prohibiting employees from discussing their 

wages with co-workers; only one in ten employers has adopted a pay

openness policy). 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 9 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

ployment actions identified in Morgan, an employer gains 

from sex-based pay disparities in a way it does not from a

discriminatory denial of promotion, hiring, or transfer. 

When a male employee is selected over a female for a 

higher level position, someone still gets the promotion and 

is paid a higher salary; the employer is not enriched. But 

when a woman is paid less than a similarly situated man, 

the employer reduces its costs each time the pay differential is implemented. Furthermore, decisions on promotions, like decisions installing seniority systems, often

implicate the interests of third-party employees in a way

that pay differentials do not. Cf. Teamsters v. United 

States, 431 U. S. 324, 352–353 (1977) (recognizing that

seniority systems involve “vested . . . rights of employees” 

and concluding that Title VII was not intended to “destroy 

or water down” those rights). Disparate pay, by contrast,

can be remedied at any time solely at the expense of the

employer who acts in a discriminatory fashion. 

C 

In light of the significant differences between pay disparities and discrete employment decisions of the type

identified in Morgan, the cases on which the Court relies 

hold no sway. See ante, at 5–10 (discussing United Air 

Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U. S. 553 (1977), Delaware State 

College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250 (1980), and Lorance v. 

AT&T Technologies, Inc., 490 U. S. 900 (1989)). Evans 

and Ricks both involved a single, immediately identifiable 

act of discrimination: in Evans, a constructive discharge, 

431 U. S., at 554; in Ricks, a denial of tenure, 449 U. S., at 

252. In each case, the employee filed charges well after 

the discrete discriminatory act occurred: When United

Airlines forced Evans to resign because of its policy barring married female flight attendants, she filed no charge; 

only four years later, when Evans was rehired, did she 

allege that the airline’s former no-marriage rule was 
10 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

unlawful and therefore should not operate to deny her 

seniority credit for her prior service. See Evans, 431 U. S., 

at 554–557. Similarly, when Delaware State College

denied Ricks tenure, he did not object until his terminal 

contract came to an end, one year later. Ricks, 449 U. S., 

at 253–254, 257–258. No repetitive, cumulative discriminatory employment practice was at issue in either case. 

See Evans, 431 U. S., at 557–558; Ricks, 449 U. S., at 258.4 

Lorance is also inapposite, for, in this Court’s view, it

too involved a one-time discrete act: the adoption of a new

seniority system that “had its genesis in sex discrimination.” See 490 U. S., at 902, 905 (internal quotation marks

omitted). The Court’s extensive reliance on Lorance, ante, 

at 7–9, 14, 17–18, moreover, is perplexing for that decision 

is no longer effective: In the 1991 Civil Rights Act, Congress superseded Lorance’s holding. §112, 105 Stat. 1079 

(codified as amended at 42 U. S. C. §2000e–5(e)(2)). Repudiating our judgment that a facially neutral seniority 

system adopted with discriminatory intent must be challenged immediately, Congress provided: 

“For purposes of this section, an unlawful employment 

practice occurs . . . when the seniority system is

adopted, when an individual becomes subject to the 

—————— 

4The Court also relies on Machinists v. NLRB, 362 U. S. 411 (1960), 

which like Evans and Ricks, concerned a discrete act: the execution of a 

collective bargaining agreement containing a union security clause. 

362 U. S., at 412, 417. In Machinists, it was undisputed that under the 

National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), a union and an employer may

not agree to a union security clause “if at the time of original execution

the union does not represent a majority of the employees in the [bargaining] unit.” Id., at 412–414, 417. The complainants, however, failed

to file a charge within the NLRA’s six-month charge filing period; 

instead, they filed charges 10 and 12 months after the execution of the

agreement, objecting to its subsequent enforcement. See id., at 412, 

414. Thus, as in Evans and Ricks, but in contrast to Ledbetter’s case, 

the employment decision at issue was easily identifiable and occurred 

on a single day. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 11 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

seniority system, or when a person aggrieved is injured by the application of the seniority system or

provision of the system.” Ibid. 

Congress thus agreed with the dissenters in Lorance that 

“the harsh reality of [that] decision,” was “glaringly at

odds with the purposes of Title VII.” 490 U. S., at 914 

(opinion of Marshall, J.). See also §3, 105 Stat. 1071 (1991

Civil Rights Act was designed “to respond to recent decisions of the Supreme Court by expanding the scope of 

relevant civil rights statutes in order to provide adequate 

protection to victims of discrimination”). 

True, §112 of the 1991 Civil Rights Act directly addressed only seniority systems. See ante, at 8, and n. 2. 

But Congress made clear (1) its view that this Court had 

unduly contracted the scope of protection afforded by Title

VII and other civil rights statutes, and (2) its aim to generalize the ruling in Bazemore. As the Senate Report

accompanying the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1990, the 

precursor to the 1991 Act, explained: 

“Where, as was alleged in Lorance, an employer

adopts a rule or decision with an unlawful discriminatory motive, each application of that rule or decision is 

a new violation of the law. In Bazemore . . ., for example, . . . the Supreme Court properly held that each 

application of th[e] racially motivated salary structure, i.e., each new paycheck, constituted a distinct

violation of Title VII. Section 7(a)(2) generalizes the

result correctly reached in Bazemore.” Civil Rights

Act of 1990, S. Rep. No. 101–315, p. 54 (1990).5 

See also 137 Cong. Rec. 29046, 29047 (1991) (Sponsors’ 

Interpretative Memorandum) (“This legislation should be 

interpreted as disapproving the extension of [Lorance] to 

—————— 

5No Senate Report was submitted with the Civil Rights Act of 1991, 

which was in all material respects identical to the proposed 1990 Act. 
12 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

contexts outside of seniority systems.”). But cf. ante, at 

18 (relying on Lorance to conclude that “when an employer issues paychecks pursuant to a system that is

facially nondiscriminatory and neutrally applied” a new 

Title VII violation does not occur (internal quotation 

marks omitted)).

Until today, in the more than 15 years since Congress

amended Title VII, the Court had not once relied upon 

Lorance. It is mistaken to do so now. Just as Congress’ 

“goals in enacting Title VII . . . never included conferring

absolute immunity on discriminatorily adopted seniority 

systems that survive their first [180] days,” 490 U. S., at 

914 (Marshall, J., dissenting), Congress never intended to

immunize forever discriminatory pay differentials unchallenged within 180 days of their adoption. This assessment 

gains weight when one comprehends that even a relatively 

minor pay disparity will expand exponentially over an

employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of 

prior pay.

A clue to congressional intent can be found in Title VII’s 

backpay provision. The statute expressly provides that 

backpay may be awarded for a period of up to two years

before the discrimination charge is filed. 42 U. S. C. 

§2000e–5(g)(1) (“Back pay liability shall not accrue from a

date more than two years prior to the filing of a charge 

with the Commission.”). This prescription indicates that 

Congress contemplated challenges to pay discrimination 

commencing before, but continuing into, the 180-day filing 

period. See Morgan, 536 U. S., at 119 (“If Congress intended to limit liability to conduct occurring in the period

within which the party must file the charge, it seems 

unlikely that Congress would have allowed recovery for 

two years of backpay.”). As we recognized in Morgan, “the 

fact that Congress expressly limited the amount of recoverable damages elsewhere to a particular time period [i.e., 

two years] indicates that the [180-day] timely filing provi-
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 13 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

sion was not meant to serve as a specific limitation . . . 

[on] the conduct that may be considered.” Ibid. 

D 

In tune with the realities of wage discrimination, the 

Courts of Appeals have overwhelmingly judged as a present violation the payment of wages infected by discrimination: Each paycheck less than the amount payable had 

the employer adhered to a nondiscriminatory compensation regime, courts have held, constitutes a cognizable 

harm. See, e.g., Forsyth v. Federation Employment and 

Guidance Serv., 409 F. 3d 565, 573 (CA2 2005) (“Any 

paycheck given within the [charge-filing] period . . . would 

be actionable, even if based on a discriminatory pay scale 

set up outside of the statutory period.”); Shea v. Rice, 409 

F. 3d 448, 452–453 (CADC 2005) (“[An] employer commit[s] a separate unlawful employment practice each time 

he pa[ys] one employee less than another for a discriminatory reason” (citing Bazemore, 478 U. S., at 396)); Goodwin 

v. General Motors Corp., 275 F. 3d 1005, 1009–1010 (CA10 

2002) (“[Bazemore] has taught a crucial distinction with

respect to discriminatory disparities in pay, establishing

that a discriminatory salary is not merely a lingering 

effect of past discrimination—instead it is itself a continually recurring violation. . . . [E]ach race-based discriminatory salary payment constitutes a fresh violation of Title 

VII.” (footnote omitted)); Anderson v. Zubieta, 180 F. 3d 

329, 335 (CADC 1999) (“The Courts of Appeals have repeatedly reached the . . . conclusion” that pay discrimination is “actionable upon receipt of each paycheck.”); accord 

Hildebrandt v. Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources, 347 

F. 3d 1014, 1025–1029 (CA7 2003); Cardenas v. Massey, 

269 F. 3d 251, 257 (CA3 2001); Ashley v. Boyle’s Famous 

Corned Beef Co., 66 F. 3d 164, 167–168 (CA8 1995) (en 

banc); Brinkley-Obu v. Hughes Training, Inc., 36 F. 3d 

336, 347–349 (CA4 1994); Gibbs v. Pierce County Law 
14 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

Enforcement Support Agency, 785 F. 2d 1396, 1399–1400 

(CA9 1986).

Similarly in line with the real-world characteristics of

pay discrimination, the EEOC—the federal agency responsible for enforcing Title VII, see, e.g., 42 U. S. C. 

§§2000e–5(f), 2000e–12(a)—has interpreted the Act to 

permit employees to challenge disparate pay each time it 

is received. The EEOC’s Compliance Manual provides 

that “repeated occurrences of the same discriminatory

employment action, such as discriminatory paychecks, can

be challenged as long as one discriminatory act occurred

within the charge filing period.” 2 EEOC Compliance 

Manual §2–IV–C(1)(a), p. 605:0024, and n. 183 (2006); cf. 

id., §10–III, p. 633:0002 (Title VII requires an employer to 

eliminate pay disparities attributable to a discriminatory

system, even if that system has been discontinued).

The EEOC has given effect to its interpretation in a 

series of administrative decisions. See Albritton v. Potter, 

No. 01A44063, 2004 WL 2983682, *2 (EEOC Office of Fed. 

Operations, Dec. 17, 2004) (although disparity arose and 

employee became aware of the disparity outside the

charge-filing period, claim was not time barred because 

“[e]ach paycheck that complainant receives which is less 

than that of similarly situated employees outside of her 

protected classes could support a claim under Title VII if

discrimination is found to be the reason for the pay discrepancy.” (citing Bazemore, 478 U. S., at 396)). See also 

Bynum-Doles v. Winter, No. 01A53973, 2006 WL 2096290 

(EEOC Office of Fed. Operations, July 18, 2006); Ward v. 

Potter, No. 01A60047, 2006 WL 721992 (EEOC Office of 

Fed. Operations, Mar. 10, 2006). And in this very case, 

the EEOC urged the Eleventh Circuit to recognize that

Ledbetter’s failure to challenge any particular pay-setting

decision when that decision was made “does not deprive 

her of the right to seek relief for discriminatory paychecks

she received in 1997 and 1998.” Brief of EEOC in Support 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 15 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

of Petition for Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En 

Banc, in No. 03–15264–GG (CA11), p. 14 (hereinafter 

EEOC Brief) (citing Morgan, 536 U. S., at 113).6 

II 

The Court asserts that treating pay discrimination as a 

discrete act, limited to each particular pay-setting decision, is necessary to “protec[t] employers from the burden 

of defending claims arising from employment decisions 

that are long past.” Ante, at 11 (quoting Ricks, 449 U. S., 

at 256–257). But the discrimination of which Ledbetter 

complained is not long past. As she alleged, and as the 

jury found, Goodyear continued to treat Ledbetter differently because of sex each pay period, with mounting harm. 

Allowing employees to challenge discrimination “that 

extend[s] over long periods of time,” into the charge-filing 

period, we have previously explained, “does not leave

employers defenseless” against unreasonable or prejudicial delay. Morgan, 536 U. S., at 121. Employers disadvantaged by such delay may raise various defenses. Id., at 

122. Doctrines such as “waiver, estoppel, and equitable 

tolling” “allow us to honor Title VII’s remedial purpose 

without negating the particular purpose of the filing requirement, to give prompt notice to the employer.” Id., at 

121 (quoting Zipes v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 455 U. S. 

385, 398 (1982)); see 536 U. S., at 121 (defense of laches 

may be invoked to block an employee’s suit “if he unrea-

—————— 

6The Court dismisses the EEOC’s considerable “experience and informed judgment,” Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 U. S. 501, 518 (1986)

(internal quotation marks omitted), as unworthy of any deference in

this case, see ante, at 23–24, n. 11. But the EEOC’s interpretations

mirror workplace realities and merit at least respectful attention. In 

any event, the level of deference due the EEOC here is an academic

question, for the agency’s conclusion that Ledbetter’s claim is not time 

barred is the best reading of the statute even if the Court “were interpreting [Title VII] from scratch.” See Edelman v. Lynchburg College, 

535 U. S. 106, 114 (2002); see supra, at 4–14. 
16 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

sonably delays in filing [charges] and as a result harms

the defendant”); EEOC Brief 15 (“[I]f Ledbetter unreasonably delayed challenging an earlier decision, and that 

delay significantly impaired Goodyear’s ability to defend

itself . . . Goodyear can raise a defense of laches. . . .”).7 

In a last-ditch argument, the Court asserts that this

dissent would allow a plaintiff to sue on a single decision 

made 20 years ago “even if the employee had full knowledge of all the circumstances relating to the . . . decision at

the time it was made.” Ante, at 20. It suffices to point out

that the defenses just noted would make such a suit foolhardy. No sensible judge would tolerate such inexcusable 

neglect. See Morgan, 536 U. S., at 121 (“In such cases, the 

federal courts have the discretionary power . . . to locate a 

just result in light of the circumstances peculiar to the 

case.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Ledbetter, the Court observes, ante, at 21, n. 9, dropped 

an alternative remedy she could have pursued: Had she 

persisted in pressing her claim under the Equal Pay Act of

1963 (EPA), 29 U. S. C. §206(d), she would not have encountered a time bar.8 See ante, at 21 (“If Ledbetter had

pursued her EPA claim, she would not face the Title VII 

obstacles that she now confronts.”); cf. Corning Glass 

Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 208–210 (1974). Nota-

—————— 

7Further, as the EEOC appropriately recognized in its brief to the 

Eleventh Circuit, Ledbetter’s failure to challenge particular pay raises 

within the charge-filing period “significantly limit[s] the relief she can

seek. By waiting to file a charge, Ledbetter lost her opportunity to seek

relief for any discriminatory paychecks she received between 1979 and

late 1997.” EEOC Brief 14. See also supra, at 12–13. 8Under the EPA 29 U. S. C. §206(d), which is subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s time prescriptions, a claim charging denial of equal 

pay accrues anew with each paycheck. 1 B. Lindemann & P. 

Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 529 (3d ed. 1996); cf. 29

U. S. C. §255(a) (prescribing a two-year statute of limitations for

violations generally, but a three-year limitation period for willful 

violations). 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 17 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

bly, the EPA provides no relief when the pay discrimination charged is based on race, religion, national origin, 

age, or disability. Thus, in truncating the Title VII rule 

this Court announced in Bazemore, the Court does not 

disarm female workers from achieving redress for unequal

pay, but it does impede racial and other minorities from

gaining similar relief.9 

Furthermore, the difference between the EPA’s prohibition against paying unequal wages and Title VII’s ban on

discrimination with regard to compensation is not as large

as the Court’s opinion might suggest. See ante, at 21. The 

key distinction is that Title VII requires a showing of

intent. In practical effect, “if the trier of fact is in equipoise about whether the wage differential is motivated by

gender discrimination,” Title VII compels a verdict for the

employer, while the EPA compels a verdict for the plaintiff. 2 C. Sullivan, M. Zimmer, & R. White, Employment 

Discrimination: Law and Practice §7.08[F][3], p. 532 (3d 

ed. 2002). In this case, Ledbetter carried the burden of 

persuading the jury that the pay disparity she suffered 

was attributable to intentional sex discrimination. See 

supra, at 1–2; infra, this page and 18. 

III 

To show how far the Court has strayed from interpretation of Title VII with fidelity to the Act’s core purpose, I 

return to the evidence Ledbetter presented at trial. 

Ledbetter proved to the jury the following: She was a 

member of a protected class; she performed work substan-

—————— 

9For example, under today’s decision, if a black supervisor initially

received the same salary as his white colleagues, but annually received

smaller raises, there would be no right to sue under Title VII outside 

the 180-day window following each annual salary change, however

strong the cumulative evidence of discrimination might be. The Court 

would thus force plaintiffs, in many cases, to sue too soon to prevail, 

while cutting them off as time barred once the pay differential is large 

enough to enable them to mount a winnable case. 
18 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

tially equal to work of the dominant class (men); she was 

compensated less for that work; and the disparity was 

attributable to gender-based discrimination. See supra, at 

1–2. 

Specifically, Ledbetter’s evidence demonstrated that her

current pay was discriminatorily low due to a long series 

of decisions reflecting Goodyear’s pervasive discrimination

against women managers in general and Ledbetter in 

particular. Ledbetter’s former supervisor, for example, 

admitted to the jury that Ledbetter’s pay, during a particular one-year period, fell below Goodyear’s minimum 

threshold for her position. App. 93–97. Although Goodyear claimed the pay disparity was due to poor performance, the supervisor acknowledged that Ledbetter received

a “Top Performance Award” in 1996. Id., at 90–93. The 

jury also heard testimony that another supervisor—who 

evaluated Ledbetter in 1997 and whose evaluation led to 

her most recent raise denial—was openly biased against 

women. Id., at 46, 77–82. And two women who had previously worked as managers at the plant told the jury they

had been subject to pervasive discrimination and were 

paid less than their male counterparts. One was paid less 

than the men she supervised. Id., at 51–68. Ledbetter 

herself testified about the discriminatory animus conveyed 

to her by plant officials. Toward the end of her career, for 

instance, the plant manager told Ledbetter that the “plant 

did not need women, that [women] didn’t help it, [and] 

caused problems.” Id., at 36.10 After weighing all the 

evidence, the jury found for Ledbetter, concluding that the 

pay disparity was due to intentional discrimination. 

Yet, under the Court’s decision, the discrimination 

Ledbetter proved is not redressable under Title VII. Each 

—————— 

10Given this abundant evidence, the Court cannot tenably maintain

that Ledbetter’s case “turned principally on the misconduct of a single 

Goodyear supervisor.” See ante, at 12–13, n. 4. 
Cite as: 550 U. S. ____ (2007) 19 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

and every pay decision she did not immediately challenge

wiped the slate clean. Consideration may not be given to 

the cumulative effect of a series of decisions that, together, 

set her pay well below that of every male area manager.

Knowingly carrying past pay discrimination forward must 

be treated as lawful conduct. Ledbetter may not be compensated for the lower pay she was in fact receiving when

she complained to the EEOC. Nor, were she still employed by Goodyear, could she gain, on the proof she presented at trial, injunctive relief requiring, prospectively, 

her receipt of the same compensation men receive for

substantially similar work. The Court’s approbation of

these consequences is totally at odds with the robust

protection against workplace discrimination Congress 

intended Title VII to secure. See, e.g., Teamsters v. United 

States, 431 U. S., at 348 (“The primary purpose of Title VII 

was to assure equality of employment opportunities and to

eliminate . . . discriminatory practices and devices . . . .”

(internal quotation marks omitted)); Albemarle Paper Co. 

v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 418 (1975) (“It is . . . the purpose 

of Title VII to make persons whole for injuries suffered on 

account of unlawful employment discrimination.”).

This is not the first time the Court has ordered a 

cramped interpretation of Title VII, incompatible with the 

statute’s broad remedial purpose. See supra, at 10–12. 

See also Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U. S. 642 

(1989) (superseded in part by the Civil Rights Act of 1991); 

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U. S. 228 (1989) (plurality opinion) (same); 1 B. Lindemann & P. Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 2 (3d ed. 1996) (“A spate of

Court decisions in the late 1980s drew congressional fire 

and resulted in demands for legislative change[,]” culminating in the 1991 Civil Rights Act (footnote omitted)). 

Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court. As in 1991, the 

Legislature may act to correct this Court’s parsimonious

reading of Title VII. 
20 LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

* * * 

For the reasons stated, I would hold that Ledbetter’s 

claim is not time barred and would reverse the Eleventh 

Circuit’s judgment.