452 U.S. 161 (1981)
The County of Washington, Oregon, employed four women as guards in the female section of its county jail.1 It paid them substantially lower wages than it paid male guards in the male section of the jail.2 In January 1974 the county eliminated the female section of the jail, transferred the female prisoners to a nearby county facility, and discharged the four respondents.3
The respondents filed suit in federal district court under Title VII.4 They alleged both that they performed work substantially equal to that of the male guards and, in the alternative, that part of the pay differential resulted from intentional sex discrimination.5 The latter claim rested on the assertion that the county had set the female guards' pay scale below the level its own outside-market survey and job-worth evaluation had warranted.6
After trial the district court found that male guards supervised more than ten times as many prisoners per guard as the female guards.7 It also found that the female guards devoted much of their time to less valuable clerical duties.8 The court therefore ruled the jobs were not substantially equal and dismissed the intentional-discrimination claim as a matter of law.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the equal-work ruling but reversed the dismissal of the intentional-discrimination claim.9 It held that such a claim could be brought under Title VII even when the jobs were not equal and remanded the case for further proceedings on that claim.10 The Supreme Court granted certiorari.11
Whether § 703(h) of Title VII restricts Title VII's prohibition of sex-based wage discrimination to claims of equal pay for equal work?12
The Bennett Amendment provides that it shall not be an unlawful employment practice under Title VII for any employer to differentiate upon the basis of sex in determining the amount of wages paid if such differentiation is authorized by the provisions of the Equal Pay Act.13 The Equal Pay Act defines a violation as paying different wages for equal work on jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility under similar working conditions.14 It then authorizes differentials made pursuant to a seniority system, a merit system, a system measuring earnings by quantity or quality of production, or a differential based on any other factor other than sex.15 The Bennett Amendment therefore incorporates only these four affirmative defenses into Title VII.16 It does not limit sex-based wage discrimination claims under Title VII to those satisfying the equal-work standard of the Equal Pay Act.17
No. The County of Washington paid female guards substantially lower wages than male guards and set the pay scale for female guards below the level its own survey and job-worth evaluation warranted.18
The respondents alleged that this differential resulted in part from intentional sex discrimination.19 The district court dismissed that claim solely because the jobs were not substantially equal.20 Under the rule, however, the Bennett Amendment authorizes only differentials based on the four listed factors other than sex.21
The facts establish that the county's pay decision was not shown to rest on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or any other factor other than sex.22 The intentional-discrimination claim therefore remains available under Title VII even though the jobs were not equal.23
Section 703(h) does not restrict Title VII's prohibition of sex-based wage discrimination to claims of equal pay for equal work.24
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by The Chief Justice, Justice Stewart, And Justice Powell
Justice Rehnquist dissented on the ground that the legislative history of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII demonstrates Congress intended every sex-based wage discrimination claim to satisfy the equal-work standard.25 He maintained that the Bennett Amendment was designed to prevent Title VII from nullifying the Equal Pay Act by allowing claims without proof of equal work.26 In his view the amendment incorporated the entire equal-pay-for-equal-work framework, including the requirement that plaintiffs prove equal work, rather than merely the four affirmative defenses.27
Allowing claims based on intentional underpayment without equal work would permit courts to engage in the comparable-worth analysis that Congress had expressly rejected when it chose the equal-work standard in 1963.28