Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf
Page Number: 52

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

15 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

members of the same sex, these two employees are not ma-
terially identical in every respect but sex.  On the contrary,
they differ in another way that the employer thinks is quite 
material.  And until Title VII is amended to add sexual ori-
entation as a prohibited ground, this is a view that an em-
ployer is permitted to implement.  As noted, other than pro-
hibiting  discrimination  on  any  of  five  specified  grounds, 
“race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin.”  42 U. S. C. 
§2000e–2(a)(1),  Title  VII  allows  employers  to  decide 
whether two employees are “materially identical.”  Even id-
iosyncratic  criteria  are  permitted;  if  an  employer  thinks
that Scorpios make bad employees, the employer can refuse
to hire Scorpios.  Such a policy would be unfair and foolish,
but under Title VII, it is permitted.  And until Title VII is 
amended, so is a policy against employing gays, lesbians, or 
transgender individuals. 

Once this is recognized, what we have in the Court’s hy-
pothetical case are two employees who differ in two ways––
sex and sexual orientation––and if the employer fires one 
and keeps the other, all that can be inferred is that the em-
ployer was motivated either entirely by sexual orientation,
entirely  by  sex,  or  in  part  by  both.    We  cannot  infer  with 
any  certainty,  as  the  hypothetical  is  apparently  meant  to 
suggest, that the employer was motivated even in part by 
sex.  The Court harps on the fact that under Title VII a pro-
hibited ground need not be the sole motivation for an ad-
verse employment action, see ante, at 10–11, 14–15, 21, but 
its example does not show that sex necessarily played any 
part in the employer’s thinking. 

The  Court  tries  to  avoid  this  inescapable  conclusion  by 
arguing that sex is really the only difference between the
two  employees.  This  is  so,  the  Court  maintains,  because 
both employees “are attracted to men.”  Ante, at 9–10.  Of 
course, the employer would couch its objection to the man 
differently.  It would say that its objection was his sexual 
orientation.  So this may appear to leave us with a battle of