Cite as: 535 U. S. 106 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
stale, for the sake of a reliable result and a speedy end to any illegal practice that proves out.5 The verification requirement has the different object of protecting 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.6 This 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. There is accordingly nothing plain in reading "charge" to require an oath by definition. Questionable would be the better word.
B
The statute is thus open to interpretation and the regulation addresses a legitimate question. Before we touch on the merits of the EEOC's position, however, two threshold matters about the status of the regulation can be given short shrift. The first is whether the agency's rulemaking exceeded its authority to adopt "suitable procedural regulations," 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-12(a), and instead addressed a substantive issue over which the EEOC has no rulemaking power, see EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991); General Elec. Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 141 (1976). Although the College argues that the EEOC's regulation "alter[s] a substantive requirement included by Congress in the statute," Brief for Respondent 32-33, this is really nothing more than a recast of the plain language argument; the College is merely restating the position we
5 See Delaware State College v. Ricks, 449 U. S. 250, 256-257 (1980) ("Limitations periods, while guaranteeing the protection of the civil rights laws to those who promptly assert their rights, also protect employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions that are long past").
6 See EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., 466 U. S. 54, 76, n. 32 (1984) ("The function of an oath is to impress upon its taker an awareness of his duty to tell the truth").
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