![handle is hein.journals/uvsyocd93 and id is 1 raw text is:
COLORAIDO LAW REVIEW 2/17/20228:11 PM
UNIVERISTY OF
COLORADO LAW REVIEW
Forum 2022
IS TITLE VII AN ANTI-DISCRIMINATION
LAW?
ANUJ C. DESAI*
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is commonly referred
to as an anti-discrimination statute. At its core, we are told, it
prohibits something called discrimination. But does it?
Startlingly, the answer is no-not really. Instead, Title VII
prohibits certain acts done for certain reasons. True, the reasons
are precisely what everyone has long understood them to be-
because of ... race, color, religion, sex, or national origin ... .1
But the law's prohibited acts do not require discrimination,
and in those cases where the term discrimination is relevant,
discrimination does not connote any wrongfulness on the
employer's part and therefore does not mean what it might
colloquially be thought to mean, i.e. the act of making an unjust
distinction.2 In short, Title VII is not an anti-discrimination
* William Voss-Bascom Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School.
Thanks to Eric Berger, Andy Coan, Katie Eyer, Jamie Macleod, Nina Mendelson,
Caleb Nelson, James Cleith Phillips, Robert Post, David Schwartz, Brian Soucek,
Kevin Tobia, and Nina Varsava for comments on earlier drafts. Thanks too
especially to Pam Karlan for a great conversation that helped assure me that I'm
not completely off base.
1. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1).
2. See discriminate, OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY,
https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/54058?rskey-pTkSKX&result=2#eid (last visited
Feb. 6, 2022) (To treat a person or group in an unjust or prejudicial manner. . . .);
see also discrimination, MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM, https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/discrimination#:~:text=Definition%20of%20discrimination
1%20%3A%20the%20practice%200f%20unfairly%20treating%20a%20person%200
r%20group,prohibits%20discrimination%20against%20the%20disabled (last
visited Feb. 6, 2022) ([T]he practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people
differently from other people or groups of people.). [https://perma.cc/YW88-JJEC]
COLORADO LAW REVIEW
2/17/2022 8:11 PM](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/uvsyocd93&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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