Dr. Naiel Nassar, a physician of Middle Eastern descent, held a faculty appointment at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) and worked as a staff physician at Parkland Memorial Hospital pursuant to an affiliation agreement under which Parkland generally hired UTSW faculty for physician positions. Nassar alleged his immediate supervisor, Dr. Beth Levine, made derogatory comments about his ethnicity and religion and otherwise harassed him. Seeking to remain at Parkland without remaining on UTSW's faculty, Nassar negotiated a staff-physician job directly with Parkland. In July 2006, he resigned his faculty post and sent a letter to UTSW leadership alleging that Levine had discriminated against and harassed him. After learning that Parkland had extended Nassar the offer notwithstanding the affiliation arrangement, the Chair of UTSW's Department of Medicine objected to Parkland's CEO that the offer violated the affiliation agreement. Parkland then rescinded the job offer. Nassar sued UTSW in federal court, alleging (1) status-based discrimination culminating in constructive discharge under Title VII § 703(a) and (2) retaliation under § 704(a) for complaining about discrimination. A jury found for Nassar on both claims, and the district court entered judgment. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit vacated the constructive discharge verdict but affirmed the retaliation judgment, applying a mixed-motive causation standard. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the proper causation standard for Title VII retaliation claims.
Does Title VII's anti-retaliation provision, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–3(a), require a plaintiff to prove that protected activity was the but-for cause of an adverse employment action, or is it sufficient to show that retaliation was a motivating factor in the decision?
Under Title VII, retaliation claims brought pursuant to § 704(a), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–3(a), require proof of but-for causation: the plaintiff must show that the adverse employment action would not have occurred in the absence of the employer's retaliatory motive. The statutory mixed-motive framework codified in § 703(m), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e–2(m)—permitting liability where a protected characteristic is a motivating factor—applies only to status-based discrimination claims (race, color, religion, sex, national origin) and does not govern retaliation. See also the default tort-law principle that "because of" denotes but-for causation and Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. 167 (2009).
Yes. Title VII retaliation claims under § 704(a) require but-for causation; the mixed-motive standard in § 703(m) does not apply to retaliation. The Fifth Circuit's use of the motivating-factor standard for retaliation was error. The judgment was vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings under the correct standard.
The Court, in a 5–4 opinion by Justice Kennedy, grounded its analysis in statutory text, structure, and background tort principles. First, the Court emphasized that causation language such as "because of" ordinarily imports a but-for requirement absent contrary indication from Congress. Building on Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., which interpreted similar text in the ADEA to require but-for causation, the Court concluded that Title VII's anti-retaliation provision—§ 704(a)—likewise demands but-for causation because it proscribes discrimination "because" an employee engaged in protected activity. Second, the Court analyzed the 1991 Civil Rights Act. Congress added § 703(m), expressly allowing motivating-factor liability for status-based discrimination—not retaliation—and placed corresponding remedial limitations in § 706(g)(2)(B). The omission of retaliation from § 703(m) was dispositive for the majority: when Congress wanted to authorize mixed-motive liability, it said so, and it did not do so for retaliation claims. The Court rejected the argument that retaliation is subsumed within "discrimination" referenced in § 703(m), reasoning that Title VII's structure treats status-based discrimination and retaliation in separate sections, using different textual formulations, and Congress's selective amendment demonstrated an intentional distinction. Third, the Court noted policy considerations. Retaliation claims are common and, in the Court's view, relatively easy to assert. Adopting a less rigorous causation standard, the majority reasoned, would expose employers to increased frivolous litigation and could "unduly constrict" the ability to make legitimate personnel decisions. Although not the primary driver of the holding, these practical concerns supported adhering to the stricter but-for standard. Justice Ginsburg, joined by three Justices, dissented. She argued that Title VII's text and history (including Price Waterhouse's mixed-motive framework) supported applying the motivating-factor standard to retaliation as well as status-based discrimination. She cautioned that a stricter causation rule would deter employees from reporting discrimination and urged Congress to correct the Court's interpretation. The majority, however, found the statute's text and structure decisive and remanded for application of the but-for standard.
Nassar is a cornerstone Title VII case delineating two distinct causation regimes: mixed-motive for status-based discrimination (§ 703(m)) and but-for for retaliation (§ 704(a)). For litigators, it affects pleading, discovery, and summary judgment strategy; at trial, it requires jury instructions and verdict forms that ask whether retaliation was the but-for cause of the adverse action. For employers and HR professionals, Nassar underscores the importance of contemporaneous, well-documented, nonretaliatory reasons for employment decisions taken after protected activity. For law students, Nassar is essential for understanding how statutory text, structure, and default tort principles interact to produce different causation standards within the same overarching statute.
Nassar clarifies that Title VII's anti-retaliation provision is governed by a traditional but-for causation standard, not the mixed-motive framework available for status-based discrimination. The Court's textual and structural analysis—highlighting Congress's selective extension of mixed-motive liability—cements the principle that different provisions within the same statute can carry distinct causation rules.