106
OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 00-1072. Argued January 8, 2002—Decided March 19, 2002
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that a "charge" of employment discrimination be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission "within [a specified number of] days after the alleged unlawful . . . practice occurred," § 706(e)(1), and that the charge "be in writing under oath or affirmation," § 706(b). An EEOC regulation permits an otherwise timely filer to verify a charge after the time for filing has expired. After respondent Lynchburg College denied academic tenure to petitioner Edelman, he faxed a letter to the EEOC in November 1997, claiming that the College had subjected him to gender-based, national origin, and religious discrimination. Edelman made no oath or affirmation. The EEOC advised him to file a charge within the applicable 300-day time limit and sent him a Form 5 Charge of Discrimination, which he returned 313 days after he was denied tenure. Edelman subsequently sued in a Virginia state court on various state-law claims, but later added a Title VII cause of action. The College then removed the case to federal court and moved to dismiss, claiming that Edelman's failure to file the verified Form 5 with the EEOC within the applicable filing period was a bar to subject-matter jurisdiction. Edelman replied that his November 1997 letter was a timely filed charge and that under the EEOC regulation, the Form 5 verification related back to the letter. The District Court dismissed the Title VII complaint, finding that the letter was not a "charge" under Title VII because neither Edelman nor the EEOC treated it as one. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that Title VII's plain language foreclosed the relation-back regulation. The court reasoned that, because a charge requires verification and must be filed within the limitations period, it follows that a charge must be verified within that period.
Held: The EEOC's relation-back regulation is an unassailable interpretation of § 706. Pp. 112-119.
(a) There is nothing plain in reading "charge" to require an oath by definition. Title VII nowhere defines "charge." Section 706(b) merely requires that a charge be verified, without saying when; § 706(e)(1) provides that a charge must be filed within a given period, without indicating whether it must be verified when filed. Neither provision incorporates the other so as to give a definition by necessary implication.
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