Cite as: 535 U. S. 106 (2002)
Syllabus
The Fourth Circuit's assumption that §§ 706(b) and (e)(1) must be read as one, with "charge" defined as "under oath or affirmation," was a doubtful structural and logical leap. Nor is the gap bridged by the commonsense rule that statutes are to be read as a whole, see United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 828, for the two quite different objectives of the timing and verification requirements prevent reading "charge" to subsume them both by definition. The time limitation is meant to encourage a potential charging party to raise a discrimination claim before it gets stale, while the verification requirement is intended to protect employers from the disruption and expense of responding to a claim unless a complainant is serious enough and sure enough to support it by oath subject to liability for perjury. The latter object, however, demands an oath only by the time the employer is obliged to respond to the charge, not at the time an employee files it with the EEOC. The statute is thus open to interpretation and the regulation addresses a legitimate question. Pp. 112-113.
(b) The College's argument that the regulation addressed a substantive issue over which the EEOC has no rulemaking power is simply a recast of the plain language argument just rejected. Moreover, there is no need to resolve the degree of deference reviewing courts owe the regulation because this Court finds that the rule is not only reasonable, but states the position the Court would adopt were it interpreting the statute from scratch. Pp. 113-114.
(c) Although the verification provision is meant to forestall catch-penny claims of disgruntled but not necessarily aggrieved employees, Congress presumably did not mean to affect Title VII's nature as a remedial scheme in which laypersons, rather than lawyers, are expected to initiate the process, see, e. g., EEOC v. Commercial Office Products Co., 486 U. S. 107, 124. Construing § 706 to permit the relation back of an oath omitted from an original filing ensures that the lay complainant, who may not know enough to verify on filing, will not risk forfeiting his rights inadvertently. At the same time, the EEOC looks out for the employer's interest by refusing to call for any response to an otherwise sufficient complaint until the verification has been supplied. This Court would be hard pressed to take issue with the EEOC's position after deciding, in Becker v. Montgomery, 532 U. S. 757, 765, that a failure to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11's signature requirement did not require dismissal of a timely filed but unsigned notice of appeal because nothing prevented later cure of the signature defect. There is no reason to think that relation back of the oath here is any less reasonable than relation back of the signature in Becker. In fact, it would be passing strange to disagree with the EEOC even without Becker, for a long history of judicial practice with oath
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