122
Opinion of the Court
FAA, the statute in effect pre-empts those state employment laws which restrict or limit the ability of employees and employers to enter into arbitration agreements. It is argued that States should be permitted, pursuant to their traditional role in regulating employment relationships, to prohibit employees like respondent from contracting away their right to pursue state-law discrimination claims in court.
It is not our holding today which is the proper target of this criticism. The line of argument is relevant instead to the Court's decision in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984), holding that Congress intended the FAA to apply in state courts, and to pre-empt state antiarbitration laws to the contrary. See id., at 16.
The question of Southland's continuing vitality was given explicit consideration in Allied-Bruce, and the Court declined to overrule it. 513 U. S., at 272; see also id., at 282 (O'Connor, J., concurring). The decision, furthermore, is not directly implicated in this case, which concerns the application of the FAA in a federal, rather than in a state, court. The Court should not chip away at Southland by indirection, especially by the adoption of the variable statutory interpretation theory advanced by the respondent in the instant case. Not all of the Justices who join today's holding agreed with Allied-Bruce, see 513 U. S., at 284 (Scalia, J., dissenting); id., at 285 (Thomas, J., dissenting), but it would be incongruous to adopt, as we did in Allied-Bruce, a conventional reading of the FAA's coverage in § 2 in order to implement pro-arbitration policies and an unconventional reading of the reach of § 1 in order to undo the same coverage. In Allied-Bruce the Court noted that Congress had not moved to overturn Southland, see 513 U. S., at 272; and we now note that it has not done so in response to Allied-Bruce itself.
Furthermore, for parties to employment contracts not involving the specific exempted categories set forth in § 1, it is true here, just as it was for the parties to the contract at issue in Allied-Bruce, that there are real benefits to the
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