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There appears to be something of a contradiction in the majority opinion: From page 2: "Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their
by intopieces 6y ago
There appears to be something of a contradiction in the majority opinion:
From page 2: "Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren’t thinking about many of the Act’s consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands."
Then later, on page 4:
"The employers also stress that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex, and that if Congress wanted to address these matters in Title VII, it would have referenced them specifically. But when Congress chooses not to include any exceptions to a broad rule, this Court applies the broad rule."
The Majority refuses to limit the scope of Title VII simply because the drafters did not consider gay and trans workers when they made the law, and also penalizes those same drafters for not creating exceptions for individuals they lacked the imagination to think of to start with.
- drewbug01 6y agoIt’s less contradictory in my mind if I don’t frame it as “penalizing” the drafters of Title 7. To me - especially when read together - it says “Congress gives us no choice but to apply the law in a broad fashion, because they explicitly chose not to limit it; and it’s not our fault if this results in unintended consequences.” With an implied wink and a nudge to Congress saying “you can fix this if you’re really all that bothered, you know.” :) Or maybe put another way: sure, they didn’t and couldn’t possibly have listed all exceptions to the law. But they didn’t really try; rather they listed one exception for everything (churches, basically) and didn’t bother with any other exceptions. And in light of that, the court didn’t consider it appropriate to read in exceptions when Congress very clearly wrote an extremely broad law. Essentially Congress gave no signal it wasn’t supposed to be broad.
- intopieces 6y agoAgreed, this is a better framing, especially when you consider the tense of the word "Choose": "Congress chooses to leave this in place without exceptions," which is in line with textualism / separation of powers.