523 U.S. 75 (1998)
ONCALE
v.
SUNDOWNER OFFSHORE SERVICES, INC., et al.
No. 96-568.
United States Supreme Court.
Argued December 3, 1997.
Decided March 4, 1998.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
FIFTH CIRCUIT
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Thomas, J., filed
a concurring opinion, post, p. 82.
Nicholas Canaday III argued the cause for petitioner. With him
on the briefs were Andre P. LaPlace and Eric Schnapper.
Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for the United
States as amicus curiae urging reversal. On the brief were Acting
Solicitor General Dellinger, Acting Assistant Attorney General Pinzler,
Deputy Solicitor General Waxman, Beth S. Brinkmann, C. Gregory Stewart,
J. Ray Terry, Jr., Gwendolyn Young Reams, and Carolyn L. Wheeler.
Harry M. Reasoner argued the cause for respondents. With him
on the brief were John H. Smither, Marie R. Yeates, Thomas H. Wilson, and Samuel
Issacharoff. [1]
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. § 2000e—2(a)(1), when the harasser and
the harassed employee are of the same sex.
I
The District Court having granted summary judgment for respondents, 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, Inc., on a Chevron U. S. A., Inc., oil platform in
the Gulf of Mexico. He was employed as a roundabout 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 assaulted 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 (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. 1263 (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 "conditions" 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 their 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 opposite-sex 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 same-sex 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 82 real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation
of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships 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.
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."
[1] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal
were filed for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America by Ellen
Simon Sacks and Christopher P. Thorman; for the Lambda
Legal Defense and Education Fund et al. by Beatrice Dohrn, John Davidson,
Ruth Harlow, Steven R. Shapiro, Sara L. Mandelbaum, and Minna
J. Kotkin; for the National Employment Lawyers Association by Margaret
A. Harris and Anne Golden; for the National Organization
on Male Sexual Victimization, Inc., by Catharine A. MacKinnon; and
for Law Professors by Nan D. Hunter.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Equal
Employment Advisory Council by Robert E. Williams and Ann
Elizabeth Reesman; and for the Texas Association of Business & Chambers
of Commerce by Jeffrey C. Londa and Linda Ottinger Headley.