Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 15

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

When an employer fires an employee because she is homo-
sexual or transgender, two causal factors may be in play— 
both  the  individual’s  sex  and  something  else  (the  sex  to
which the individual is attracted or with which the individ-
ual identifies).  But Title VII doesn’t care.  If an employer 
would not have discharged an employee but for that in-
dividual’s  sex,  the  statute’s  causation  standard  is  met, 
and liability may attach. 

Reframing the additional causes in today’s cases as addi-
tional intentions can do no more to insulate the employers 
from  liability.    Intentionally  burning  down  a  neighbor’s 
house is arson, even if the perpetrator’s ultimate intention 
(or motivation) is only to improve the view.  No less, inten-
tional discrimination based on sex violates Title VII, even if 
it is intended only as a means to achieving the employer’s
ultimate  goal  of  discriminating  against  homosexual  or 
transgender  employees.    There  is  simply  no  escaping  the 
role intent plays here:  Just as sex is necessarily a but-for 
cause when an employer discriminates against homosex-
ual or transgender employees, an employer who discrim-
inates  on  these  grounds  inescapably  intends  to  rely  on 
sex in its decisionmaking.  Imagine an employer who has 
a  policy  of  firing  any  employee  known  to  be  homosexual. 
The employer hosts an office holiday party and invites em-
ployees to bring their spouses.  A model employee arrives 
and  introduces  a  manager  to  Susan,  the  employee’s  wife.
Will that employee be fired?  If the policy works as the em-
ployer intends, the answer depends entirely on whether the 
model employee is a man or a woman.  To be sure, that em-
ployer’s ultimate goal might be to discriminate on the basis
of sexual orientation.  But to achieve that purpose the em-
ployer must, along the way, intentionally treat an employee
worse based in part on that individual’s sex.

An employer musters no better a defense by responding
that it is equally happy to fire male and female employees 
who are homosexual or transgender.  Title VII liability is