Cite as: 534 U. S. 279 (2002)
Thomas, J., dissenting
action in court. See 117 Cong. Rec. 32088-32111 (1971); 118 Cong. Rec. 3965-3979 (1972).
The statutory scheme enacted by Congress thus entitles neither the EEOC nor an employee, upon filing a lawsuit, to obtain a particular remedy by establishing that an employer discriminated in violation of the law.6 In both cases, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(g)(1) governs, and that provision unambiguously requires a court to determine what relief is "appropriate" in a particular case.7
II
Because Congress has not given the EEOC the authority to usurp the traditional role of courts to determine what constitutes "appropriate" relief in a given case, it is necessary to examine whether it would be "appropriate" to allow the EEOC to obtain victim-specific relief for Baker here, notwithstanding the fact that Baker, by signing an arbitration
6 The Court, in fact, implicitly admits as much. Contradicting its earlier assertion that the "statutes unambiguously authorize the EEOC to obtain the relief that it seeks in its complaint if it can prove its case against respondent," ante, at 287 (emphasis added), the Court later concludes that the statutory scheme gives the trial judge "discretion in a particular case to order reinstatement and award damages in an amount warranted by the facts of that case." Ante, at 292-293.
7 Similarly, the EEOC's authority to obtain legal remedies is also no greater than that of an employee acting on his own behalf. Title 42 U. S. C. § 1981a(a)(2), which was enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1072, provides that the EEOC or an employee "may recover compensatory and punitive damages" in addition to the forms of relief authorized by § 2000e-5(g)(1). (Emphasis added.) Nothing in § 1981a(a), however, alters the fundamental proposition that it is for the judiciary to determine what relief (of all the relief that plaintiffs "may recover" under the statute) the particular plaintiff before the court is entitled to. The statutory language does not purport to grant the EEOC or an employee the absolute right to obtain damages in every case of proven discrimination, despite the operation of such legal doctrines as time bar, accord and satisfaction, or (as in this case) binding agreement to arbitrate.
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