Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 78

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

41 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

House  of  Representatives,”  Meritor  Savings  Bank,  477 
U. S., at 63, by Representative Howard Smith, the Chair-
man  of  the  Rules  Committee.  See  110  Cong.  Rec.  2577
(1964).  Representative Smith had been an ardent opponent 
of  the  civil  rights  bill,  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  he
added the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of 
“sex” as a poison pill.  See, e.g., Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, 
Inc., 742 F. 2d 1081, 1085 (CA7 1984).  On this theory, Rep-
resentative  Smith  thought  that  prohibiting  employment 
discrimination  against  women  would  be  unacceptable  to
Members  who  might  have  otherwise  voted  in  favor  of  the 
bill  and  that  the  addition  of  this  prohibition  might  bring 
about the bill’s defeat.35  But if Representative Smith had
been looking for a poison pill, prohibiting discrimination on
the  basis  of  sexual  orientation  or  gender  identity  would
have been far more potent.  However, neither Representa-
tive Smith nor any other Member said one word about the 
possibility that the prohibition of sex discrimination might 
have that meaning.  Instead, all the debate concerned dis-
crimination on the basis of biological sex.36  See 110 Cong. 
Rec. 2577–2584. 

Representative Smith’s motivations are contested, 883 F.
3d,  at  139–140  (Lynch,  J.,  dissenting),  but  whatever  they 

—————— 

35 See  Osterman,  Origins  of  a  Myth:  Why  Courts,  Scholars,  and  the
Public Think Title VII’s Ban on Sex Discrimination Was an Accident, 20 
Yale J. L. & Feminism 409, 409–410 (2009). 

36 Recent scholarship has linked the adoption of the Smith Amendment 
to the broader campaign for women’s rights that was underway at the 
time.  E.g., Osterman, supra; Freeman, How Sex Got Into Title VII: Per-
sistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy, 9 L. & Ineq. 163 (1991);
Barzilay, Parenting Title VII: Rethinking the History of the Sex Discrim-
ination Provision, 28 Yale J. L. & Feminism 55 (2016); Gold, A Tale of
Two  Amendments:  The  Reasons  Congress  Added  Sex  to  Title  VII  and
Their  Implication  for  the  Issue  of  Comparable  Worth,  19  Duquesne  L. 
Rev. 453 (1981).  None of these studies has unearthed evidence that the 
amendment was understood to apply to discrimination because of sexual 
orientation or gender identity.