Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 74.0

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

37 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

What  today’s  decision  latches  onto  are  Oncale’s  com-
ments about whether “ ‘male-on-male sexual harassment’ ” 
was on Congress’s mind when it enacted Title VII.  Ante, at 
28 (quoting 523 U. S., at 79).  The Court in Oncale observed 
that  this  specific  type  of  behavior  “was  assuredly  not  the 
principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted
Title VII,” but it found that immaterial because “statutory
prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover rea-
sonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions 
of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legis-
lators by which we are governed.”  523 U. S., at 79 (empha-
sis added).

It takes considerable audacity to read these comments as 
committing  the  Court  to  a  position  on  deep  philosophical 
questions about the meaning of language and their implica-
tions for the interpretation of legal rules.  These comments 
are better understood as stating mundane and uncontrover-
sial truths.  Who would argue that a statute applies only to
the “principal evils” and not lesser evils that fall within the 
plain scope of its terms?  Would even the most ardent “pur-
posivists”  and  fans  of  legislative  history  contend  that
congressional  intent  is  restricted  to  Congress’s  “principal 
concerns”? 
  Properly understood, Oncale does not provide the slight-
est  support  for  what  the  Court  has  done  today.    For  one 
thing,  it  would  be  a  wild  understatement  to  say  that  dis-
crimination because of sexual orientation and transgender 
status  was  not  the  “principal  evil”  on  Congress’s  mind  in 
1964.  Whether we like to admit it now or not, in the think-
ing of Congress and the public at that time, such discrimi-
nation would not have been evil at all. 

But  the  more  important  difference  between  these  cases
and Oncale is that here the interpretation that the Court
adopts does not fall within the ordinary meaning of the stat-
utory  text  as  it  would  have  been  understood  in  1964.  To