550
Opinion of Stevens, J.
gender, religion, or disability without knowing that it is violating Title VII or the ADA. In order to recover compensatory damages under the 1991 Act, victims of unlawful disparate treatment must prove that the defendants' conduct was intentional, but they need not prove that the defendants either knew or should have known that they were violating the law. It is the additional element of willful or reckless disregard of the law that justifies a penalty of double damages in age discrimination cases and punitive damages in the broad range of cases covered by the 1991 Act.
It is of course true that as our society moves closer to the goal of eliminating intentional, invidious discrimination, the core mandates of Title VII and the ADA are becoming increasingly ingrained in employers' minds. As more employers come to appreciate the importance and the proportions of those statutes' mandates, the number of federal violations will continue to decrease accordingly. But at the same time, one could reasonably believe, as Congress did, that as our national resolve against employment discrimination hardens, deliberate violations of Title VII and the ADA become increasingly blameworthy and more properly the subject of "societal condemnation," McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co., 513 U. S. 352, 357 (1995), in the form of punitive damages. Indeed, it would have been rather perverse for Congress to conclude that the increasing acceptance of antidiscrimination laws in the workplace somehow mitigates willful violations of those laws such that only those violations that are accompanied by particularly outlandish acts warrant special deterrence.
Given the clarity of our cases and the precision of Congress' words, the common-law tradition of punitive damages and any relationship it has to "egregious conduct" is quite irrelevant. It is enough to say that Congress provided in the 1991 Act its own punitive damages standard that focuses solely on willful mental state, and it did not suggest that there is any class of willful violations that are exempt from
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