Constitutional Law Cases: Rehnquist Court
1990 - 1999
US Supreme Court
Syllabus
v.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 96-568.
Argued December 3, 1997 -
Decided March 4, 1998
Petitioner Oncale filed a complaint against his employer, respondent Sundowner Offshore
Services, Inc., claiming that sexual harassment directed against him by respondent
coworkers in their workplace constituted "discriminat[ion] . . . because of . . .
sex" prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).
Relying on Fifth Circuit precedent, the District Court held that Oncale, a male, had
no Title VII cause of action for harassment by male coworkers. The Fifth Circuit affirmed.
Held: Sex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under
Title VII. Title VII's prohibition of discrimination "because of . . . sex" protects
men as well as women, Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC , 462 U.S.
669, 682 , and in the related context of racial discrimination in the workplace this
Court has rejected any conclusive presumption that an employer will not discriminate
against members of his own race, Castaneda v. Partida , 430 U.S. 482, 499 . There
is no justification in Title VII's language or the Court's precedents for a categorical
rule barring a claim of discrimination "because of . . . sex" merely because the plaintiff
and the defendant (or the person charged with acting on behalf of the defendant) are
of the same sex. Recognizing liability for same-sex harassment will not transform
Title VII into a general civility code for the American workplace, since Title VII
is directed at discrimination because of sex, not merely conduct tinged with offensive
sexual connotations; since the statute does not reach genuine but innocuous differences
in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same, and the opposite,
sex; and since the objective severity of harassment should be judged from the perspective
of a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position, considering all the circumstances.
Pp. 2-7.
83 F. 3d 118, reversed and remanded.
SCALIA , J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. THOMAS , J., filed a concurring
opinion.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary
print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical
or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary
print goes to press.
U.S. Supreme Court
No. 96-568
JOSEPH ONCALE, PETITIONER v. SUNDOWNER OFFSHORE SERVICES, INCORPORATED, ET
AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
[March 4, 1998]
JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether workplace harassment can violate Title VII's
prohibition against "discriminat[ion] . . . because of . . . sex," 42 U.S.C. § 2000e2(a)(1),
when the harasser and the harassed employee are of the same sex.
I
The District Court having granted summary judgment for respondent, we must assume
the facts to be as alleged by petitioner Joseph Oncale. The precise details are irrelevant
to the legal point we must decide, and in the interest of both brevity and dignity
we shall describe them only generally. In late October 1991, Oncale was working for
respondent Sundowner Offshore Services on a Chevron U. S. A., Inc., oil platform in
the Gulf of Mexico. He was employed as a roustabout on an eight-man crew which included
respondents John Lyons, Danny Pippen, and Brandon Johnson. Lyons, the crane operator,
and Pippen, the driller, had supervisory authority, App. 41, 77, 43. On several occasions,
Oncale was forcibly subjected to sex related, humiliating actions against him by Lyons,
Pippen and Johnson in the presence of the rest of the crew. Pippen and Lyons also
physically assulted Oncale in a sexual manner, and Lyons threatened him with rape.
Oncale's complaints to supervisory personnel produced no remedial action; in fact,
the company's Safety Compliance Clerk, Valent Hohen, told Oncale that Lyons and Pippen
"picked [on] him all the time too," and called him a name suggesting homosexuality.
Id., at 77. Oncale eventually quit-asking that his pink slip reflect that he "voluntarily
left due to sexual harassment and verbal abuse." Id., at 79. When asked at his deposition
why he left Sundowner, Oncale stated "I felt that if I didn't leave my job, that I
would be raped or forced to have sex." Id., at 71.
Oncale filed a complaint against Sundowner in the United States District Court for
the Eastern District of Louisiana, alleging that he was discriminated against in his
employment because of his sex. Relying on the Fifth Circuit's decision in Garcia v.
Elf Atochem North America , 28 F. 3d 446, 451-452 (CA5 1994), the district court held
that "Mr. Oncale, a male, has no cause of action under Title VII for harassment by
male co-workers." App. 106. On appeal, a panel of the Fifth Circuit concluded that
Garcia was binding Circuit precedent, and affirmed. 83 F. 3d 118 (1996). We granted
certiorari. 520 U. S. ___ (1997).
II
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides, in relevant part, that "[i]t
shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . 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." 78 Stat. 255, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). We have held that this
not only covers "terms" and "condi tions" in the narrow contractual sense, but "evinces
a congressional intent to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of
men and women in employment." Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson , 477 U.S. 57, 64
(1986) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). "When the workplace is permeated
with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe
or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive
working environment, Title VII is violated." Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. , 510
U.S. 17, 21 (1993) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Title VII's prohibition of discrimination "because of . . . sex" protects men as
well as women, Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC , 462 U.S. 669, 682
(1983), and in the related context of racial discrimination in the workplace we have
rejected any conclusive presumption that an employer will not discriminate against
members of his own race. "Because of the many facets of human motivation, it would
be unwise to presume as a matter of law that human beings of one definable group will
not discriminate against other members of that group." Castaneda v. Partida , 430
U.S. 482, 499 (1977). See also id. , at 515-516 n. 6 (Powell, J., joined by Burger,
C. J., and REHNQUIST , J., dissenting). In Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa
Clara Cty. , 480 U.S. 616 (1987), a male employee claimed that his employer discriminated
against him because of his sex when it preferred a female employee for promotion.
Although we ultimately rejected the claim on other grounds, we did not consider it
significant that the supervisor who made that decision was also a man. See id., at
624-625. If our precedents leave any doubt on the question, we hold today that nothing
in Title VII necessarily bars a claim of discrimination "because of . . . sex" merely
because the plaintiff and the defendant (or the person charged with acting on behalf
of the defendant) are of the same sex. Courts have had little trouble with that principle
in cases like Johnson , where an employee claims to have been passed over for a job
or promotion. But when the issue arises in the context of a "hostile environment"
sexual harassment claim, the state and federal courts have taken a bewildering variety
of stances. Some, like the Fifth Circuit in this case, have held that same-sex sexual
harassment claims are never cognizable under Title VII. See also, e.g., Goluszek v.
H. P. Smith , 697 F. Supp. 1452 (ND Ill. 1988). Other decisions say that such claims
are actionable only if the plaintiff can prove that the harasser is homosexual (and
thus presumably motivated by sexual desire). Compare McWilliams v. Fairfax County
Board of Supervisors , 72 F. 3d 1191 (CA4 1996), with Wrightson v. Pizza Hut of America
, 99 F. 3d 138 (CA4 1996). Still others suggest that workplace harassment that is
sexual in content is always actionable, regardless of the harasser's sex, sexual orientation,
or motivations. See Doe v. Belleville , 119 F. 3d 563 (CA7 1997).
We see no justification in the statutory language or our precedents for a categorical
rule excluding same-sex harassment claims from the coverage of Title VII. As some
courts have observed, male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly
not the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. But
statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable
evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns
of our legislators by which we are governed. Title VII prohibits "discriminat[ion]
. . . because of . . . sex" in the "terms" or "conditions" of employment. Our holding
that this includes sexual harassment must extend to sexual harassment of any kind
that meets the statutory requirements.
Respondents and their amici contend that recognizing liability for same-sex harassment
will transform Title VII into a general civility code for the American workplace.
But that risk is no greater for same-sex than for oppositesex harassment, and is adequately
met by careful attention to the requirements of the statute. Title VII does not prohibit
all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace; it is directed only at " discriminat[ion]
. . . because of . . . sex." We have never held that workplace harassment, even harassment
between men and women, is automatically discrimination because of sex merely because
the words used have sexual content or connotations. "The critical issue, Title VII's
text indicates, is whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms
or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed." Harris,
supra , at 25 (GINSBURG , J., concurring).
Courts and juries have found the inference of discrimination easy to draw in most
male-female sexual harassment situations, because the challenged conduct typically
involves explicit or implicit proposals of sexual activity; it is reasonable to assume
those proposals would not have been made to someone of the same sex. The same chain
of inference would be available to a plaintiff alleging samesex harassment, if there
were credible evidence that the harasser was homosexual. But harassing conduct need
not be motivated by sexual desire to support an inference of discrimination on the
basis of sex. A trier of fact might reasonably find such discrimination, for example,
if a female victim is harassed in such sex-specific and derogatory terms by another
woman as to make it clear that the harasser is motivated by general hostility to the
presence of women in the workplace. A same-sex harassment plaintiff may also, of course,
offer direct comparative evidence about how the alleged harasser treated members of
both sexes in a mixed-sex workplace. Whatever evidentiary route the plaintiff chooses
to follow, he or she must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely tinged
with offensive sexual connotations, but actually constituted " discrimina[tion] .
. . because of . . . sex."
And there is another requirement that prevents Title VII from expanding into a general
civility code: As we emphasized in Meritor and Harris , the statute does not reach
genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with
members of the same sex and of the opposite sex. The prohibition of harassment on
the basis of sex requires neither asexuality nor androgyny in the workplace; it forbids
only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the "conditions" of the victim's
employment. "Conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively
hostile or abusive work environment-an environment that a reasonable person would
find hostile or abusive-is beyond Title VII's purview." Harris , 510 U.S., at 21 ,
citing Meritor , 477 U. S. at 67. We have always regarded that requirement as crucial,
and as sufficient to ensure that courts and juries do not mistake ordinary socializing
in the workplace-such as male-on-male horseplay or intersexual flirtation-for discriminatory
"conditions of employment."
We have emphasized, moreover, that the objective severity of harassment should be
judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position, considering
"all the circumstances." Harris, supra, at 23. In same-sex (as in all) harassment
cases, that inquiry requires careful consideration of the social context in which
particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target. A professional football
player's working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive, for example,
if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field-even if the same
behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach's secretary (male
or female) back at the office. The real social impact of workplace behavior often
depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relation
ships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the
physical acts performed. Common sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context,
will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or roughhousing
among members of the same sex, and conduct which a reasonable person in the plaintiff's
position would find severely hostile or abusive.
III
Because we conclude that sex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment
is actionable under Title VII, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
It is so ordered.
U.S. Supreme Court
No. 96-568
JOSEPH ONCALE, PETITIONER v. SUNDOWNER OFFSHORE SERVICES, INCORPORATED, ET
AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
[March 4, 1998]
JUSTICE THOMAS , concurring.
I concur because the Court stresses that in every sexual harassment case, the plaintiff
must plead and ultimately prove Title VII's statutory requirement that there be discrimination
"because of . . . sex."