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4 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

their transgender status.  884 F. 3d 560 (2018).  During the
course  of  the  proceedings  in  these  long-running  disputes, 
both Mr. Zarda and Ms. Stephens have passed away.  But 
their estates continue to press their causes for the benefit 
of their heirs.  And we granted certiorari in these matters
to resolve at last the disagreement among the courts of ap-
peals over the scope of Title VII’s protections for homosex-
ual and transgender persons.  587 U. S. ___ (2019). 

II 
This Court normally interprets a statute in accord with
the ordinary public meaning of its terms at the time of its 
enactment.  After all, only the words on the page constitute 
the  law  adopted  by  Congress  and  approved  by  the  Presi-
dent.  If  judges  could  add  to,  remodel,  update,  or  detract
from  old  statutory  terms  inspired  only  by  extratextual 
sources and our own imaginations, we would risk amending 
statutes outside the legislative process reserved for the peo-
ple’s  representatives.  And  we  would  deny  the  people  the 
right to continue relying on the original meaning of the law 
they have counted on to settle their rights and obligations.
See  New  Prime  Inc.  v.  Oliveira,  586  U. S.  ___,  ___–___ 
(2019) (slip op., at 6–7). 

With this in mind, our task is clear.  We must determine 
the ordinary public meaning of Title VII’s command that it 
is “unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or
to  discharge  any  individual,  or  otherwise  to  discriminate 
against  any  individual  with  respect  to  his  compensation, 
terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of 
such  individual’s  race,  color,  religion,  sex,  or  national 
origin.”  §2000e–2(a)(1).  To do so, we orient ourselves to the 
time of the statute’s adoption, here 1964, and begin by ex-
amining  the  key  statutory  terms  in  turn  before  assessing 
their impact on the cases at hand and then confirming our 
work against this Court’s precedents.