SCOTUS Resolves Split Re Showing Needed for Retaliation Claims

Per Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, No. 05-259 [from the Syllabus]:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employment discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” 42 U. S. C. §2000e–2(a), and its anti-retaliation provision forbids “discriminat[ion] against” an employee or job applicant who, inter alia, has “made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in” a Title VII proceeding or investigation, §2000e–3(a). Respondent White, the only woman in her department, operated the forklift at the Tennessee Yard of petitioner Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. (Burlington). After she complained, her immediate supervisor was disciplined for sexual harassment, but she was removed from forklift duty to standard track laborer tasks. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming that the reassignment was unlawful gender discrimination and retaliation for her complaint. Subsequently, she was suspended without pay for insubordination. Burlington later found that she had not been insubordinate, reinstated her, and awarded her backpay for the 37 days she was suspended. The suspension led to another EEOC retaliation charge. After exhausting her administrative remedies, White filed an action against Burlington in federal court claiming, as relevant here, that Burlington’s actions in changing her job responsibilities and suspending her for 37 days amounted to unlawful retaliation under Title VII. A jury awarded her compensatory damages. In affirming, the Sixth Circuit applied the same standard for retaliation that it applies to a substantive discrimination offense, holding that a retaliation plaintiff must show an “adverse employment action,” defined as a “materially adverse change in the terms and conditions” of employment. The Circuits have come to different conclusions about whether the challenged action has to be employment or workplace related and about how harmful that action must be to constitute retaliation.

Held:

1. The anti-retaliation provision does not confine the actions and harms it forbids to those that are related to employment or occur at the workplace. . . .

2. The anti-retaliation provision covers only those employer actions that would have been materially adverse to a reasonable employee or applicant. This Court agrees with the Seventh and District of Columbia Circuits that the proper formulation requires a retaliation plaintiff to show that the challenged action “well might have ‘dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’ ”

Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment