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Page Number: 75.0

38 

BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

decide for the defendants in Oncale, it would have been nec-
essary to carve out an exception to the statutory text.  Here, 
no such surgery is at issue.  Even if we totally disregard the 
societal norms of 1964, the text of Title VII does not support
the Court’s holding.  And the reasoning of Oncale does not 
preclude or counsel against our taking those norms into ac-
count.  They are relevant, not for the purpose of creating an 
exception to the terms of the statute, but for the purpose of 
better appreciating how those terms would have been un-
derstood at the time. 

2 
The  Court  argues  that  two  other  decisions––Phillips  v. 
Martin  Marietta  Corp.,  400  U. S.  542  (1971)  (per curiam),
and Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 
U. S.  702  (1978)––buttress  its  decision,  but  those  cases 
merely held that Title VII prohibits employer conduct that
plainly constitutes discrimination because of biological sex.
In  Philips,  the  employer  treated  women  with  young  chil-
dren less favorably than men with young children.  In Man-
hart, the employer required women to make larger pension 
contributions than men.  It is hard to see how these hold-
ings assist the Court.

The  Court  extracts  three  “lessons”  from  Phillips,  Man-
hart, and Oncale, but none sheds any light on the question 
before us.  The first lesson is that “it’s irrelevant what an 
employer might call its discriminatory practice, how others
might label it, or what else might motivate it.”  Ante, at 14. 
This lesson is obviously true but proves nothing.  As to the 
label attached to a practice, has anyone ever thought that
the  application  of  a  law  to  a  person’s  conduct  depends  on
how it is labeled?  Could a bank robber escape conviction by 
saying he was engaged in asset enhancement?  So if an em-
ployer discriminates because of sex, the employer is liable 
no  matter  what  it  calls  its  conduct,  but  if  the  employer’s