Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

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

13 

Opinion of the Court 

these  submissions  did  not  sway  the  Court.    That  an  em-
ployer  discriminates  intentionally  against  an  individual
only in part because of sex supplies no defense to Title VII. 
Nor does the fact an employer may happen to favor women 
as a class.
  In Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 
U. S.  702  (1978),  an  employer  required  women  to  make 
larger pension fund contributions than men.  The employer
sought to justify its disparate treatment on the ground that 
women tend to live longer than men, and thus are likely to
receive  more  from  the  pension  fund  over  time.    By  every-
one’s admission, the employer was not guilty of animosity
against women or a “purely habitual assumptio[n] about a 
woman’s  inability  to  perform  certain  kinds  of  work”;  in-
stead, it relied on what appeared to be a statistically accu-
rate statement about life expectancy.  Id., at 707–708.  Even 
so, the Court recognized, a rule that appears evenhanded at 
the group level can prove discriminatory at the level of in-
dividuals.  True, women as a class may live longer than men 
as  a  class.    But  “[t]he  statute’s  focus  on  the  individual  is
unambiguous,” and any individual woman might make the
larger pension contributions and still die as early as a man. 
Id., at 708.  Likewise, the Court dismissed as irrelevant the 
employer’s insistence that its actions were motivated by a
wish to achieve classwide equality between the sexes:  An 
employer’s intentional discrimination on the basis of sex is
no more permissible when it is prompted by some further 
intention (or motivation), even one as prosaic as seeking to 
account for actuarial tables.  Ibid.  The employer violated 
Title  VII  because,  when  its  policy  worked  exactly  as 
planned, it could not “pass the simple test” asking whether 
an individual female employee would have been treated the
same regardless of her sex.  Id., at 711.  

In Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 
75 (1998), a male plaintiff alleged that he was singled out 
by his male co-workers for sexual harassment.  The Court