(a) By excluding women with childbearing capacity from lead-exposed jobs, respondent's policy creates a facial classification based on gender and explicitly discriminates against women on the basis of their sex under § 703(a) of Title VII. Moreover, in using the words "capable of bearing children" as the criterion for exclusion, the policy explicitly classifies on the basis of potential for pregnancy, which classification must be [p188] regarded, under the PDA, in the same light as explicit sex discrimination. The Court of Appeals erred in assuming that the policy was facially neutral because it had only a discriminatory effect on women's employment opportunities, and because its asserted purpose, protecting women's unconceived offspring, was ostensibly benign. The policy is not neutral, because it does not apply to male employees in the same way as it applies to females, despite evidence about the debilitating effect of lead exposure on the male reproductive system. Also, the absence of a malevolent motive does not convert a facially discriminatory policy into a neutral policy with a discriminatory effect. Cf. Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., 400 U.S. 542. Because respondent's policy involves disparate treatment through explicit facial discrimination, the business necessity defense and its burden-shifting under Wards Cove are inapplicable here. Rather, as indicated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's enforcement policy, respondent's policy may be defended only as a BFOQ, a more stringent standard than business necessity. Pp. 197-200 .
(b) The language of both the BFOQ provision set forth in § 703(e)(1) of Title VII -- which allows an employer to discriminate on the basis of sex "in those certain instances where . . . sex . . . is a [BFOQ] reasonably necessary to the normal operation of [the] particular business" -- and the PDA provision that amended Title VII-which specifies that, unless pregnant employees differ from others "in their ability or inability to work," they must be "treated the same" as other employees "for all employment-related purposes" -- as well as these provisions' legislative history and the case law, prohibit an employer from discriminating against a woman because of her capacity to become pregnant unless her reproductive potential prevents her from performing the duties of her job. The so-called safety exception to the BFOQ is limited to instances in which sex or pregnancy actually interferes with the employee's ability to perform, and the employer must direct its concerns in this regard to those aspects of the woman's job-related activities that fall within the "essence" of the particular business. Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321 , 333 , 335 ; Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell, 472 U.S. 400, 413. The unconceived fetuses of respondent's female employees are neither customers nor third parties whose safety is essential to the business of battery manufacturing. Pp. 200-206 .
(c) Respondent cannot establish a BFOQ. Fertile women, as far as appears in the record, participate in the manufacture of batteries as efficiently as anyone else. Moreover, respondent's professed concerns about the welfare of the next generation do not suffice to establish a BFOQ of female sterility. Title VII, as amended by the PDA, mandates that decisions about the welfare of future children be left to the parents [p189] who conceive, bear, support, and raise them, rather than to the employers who hire those parents or the courts. Pp. 206-207 .
(d) An employer's tort liability for potential fetal injuries and its increased costs due to fertile women in the workplace do not require a different result. If, under general tort principles, Title VII bans sex-specific fetal-protection policies, the employer fully informs the woman of the risk, and the employer has not acted negligently, the basis for holding an employer liable seems remote, at best. Moreover, the incremental cost of employing members of one sex cannot justify a discriminatory refusal to hire members of that gender. See, e.g., Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702 , 716-718 , and n. 32. Pp. 208-211 .
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which MARSHALL, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and KENNEDY, J., joined, post, p. 211 . SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 223 . [p190]
Respondent Johnson Controls, Inc., manufactures batteries. In the manufacturing process, the element lead is a primary ingredient. Occupational exposure to lead entails health risks, including the risk of harm to any fetus carried by a female employee. [p191]
[P]rotection of the health of the unborn child is the immediate and direct responsibility of the prospective parents. While the medical profession and the company can support them in the exercise of this responsibility, it cannot assume it for them without simultaneously infringing their rights as persons.
. . . . Since not all women who can become mothers, wish to become mothers, (or will become mothers), it would appear to be illegal discrimination to treat all who are capable of pregnancy as though they will become pregnant.
Consistent with that view, Johnson Controls "stopped short of excluding women capable of bearing children from lead exposure," id. at 138, but emphasized that a woman who expected to have a child should not choose a job in which she would have such exposure. The company also required a woman who wished to be considered for employment to sign a statement that she had been advised of the risk of having a child while she was exposed to lead. The statement informed the woman that, although there was evidence "that women exposed to lead have a higher rate of abortion," this evidence was "not as clear . . . as the relationship between cigarette smoking and cancer," but that it was, "medically speaking, just good sense not to run that risk if you want children and do not want to expose the unborn child to risk, however small. . . ."
Five years later, in 1982, Johnson Controls shifted from a policy of warning to a policy of exclusion. Between 1979 and 1983, eight employees became pregnant while maintaining blood lead levels in excess of 30 micrograms per deciliter. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, 34. This appeared to be the critical level [p192] noted by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) for a worker who was planning to have a family. See 29 CFR § 1910.1025 (1989). The company responded by announcing a broad exclusion of women from jobs that exposed them to lead:
. . . [I]t is [Johnson Controls'] policy that women who are pregnant or who are capable of bearing children will not be placed into jobs involving lead exposure or which could expose them to lead through the exercise of job bidding, bumping, transfer or promotion rights.
App. 85-86. The policy defined "women . . . capable of bearing children" as "[a]ll women except those whose inability to bear children is medically documented." Id. at 81. It further stated that an unacceptable work station was one where, "over the past year," an employee had recorded a blood lead level of more than 30 micrograms per deciliter or the work site had yielded an air sample containing a lead level in excess of 30 micrograms per cubic meter. Ibid.
In April, 1984, petitioners filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin a class action challenging Johnson Controls' fetal-protection policy as sex discrimination that violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Among the individual plaintiffs were petitioners Mary Craig, who had chosen to be sterilized in order to avoid losing her job, Elsie Nason, a 50-year-old divorcee, who had suffered a loss in compensation when she was transferred out of a job where she was exposed to lead, and Donald Penney, who had been denied a request for a leave of absence for the purpose of lowering his lead level because he intended to become a father. Upon stipulation of the parties, the District Court certified a class consisting of "all past, present and future production and maintenance employees" in United Auto Workers bargaining [p193] units at nine of Johnson Controls' plants "who have been and continue to be affected by [the employer's] Fetal Protection Policy implemented in 1982." Order of Feb. 25, 1985.
The District Court granted summary judgment for defendant-respondent Johnson Controls. 680 F.Supp. 309 (1988). Applying a three-part business necessity defense derived from fetal-protection cases in the Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits, the District Court concluded that, while "there is a disagreement among the experts regarding the effect of lead on the fetus," the hazard to the fetus through exposure to lead was established by "a considerable body of opinion"; that, although
[e]xpert opinion has been provided which holds that lead also affects the reproductive abilities of men and women . . . [and] that these effects are as great as the effects of exposure of the fetus . . . a great body of experts are of the opinion that the fetus is more vulnerable to levels of lead that would not affect adults;
and that petitioners had "failed to establish that there is an acceptable alternative policy which would protect the fetus." Id. at 315-316. The court stated that, in view of this disposition of the business necessity defense, it did not "have to undertake a bona fide occupational qualification's (BFOQ) analysis." Id. at 316, n. 5.
Lots of mirrors, lots of chrome, lots of really bright colors, a flat screen TV that swivels around and a Picasso hanging over the tub.
Chuck if you think that is a real Picasso painting over the bathtub then you must be smoking the same thing that Oscar Goodman smoked when he made his NFL suggestion.
I am pretty sure none of us think that Wynn would put an original Picasso in ANY room, including his own, at this point, given his luck(y elbow) with them.
Just an FYI, there's one new pic of one of the suites at Encore, which I'm guessing is a high-roller suite. Here's the link: