122
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
mercial Office Products Co., supra, at 124). Permitting relation back of an oath omitted from an original filing is reasonable because it helps ensure that lay complainants will not inadvertently forfeit their rights. The regulation is also consistent, as the Court explains, with the common-law practice of allowing later verifications to relate back. See ante, at 116-117. For these reasons, I think the regulation is reasonable and should be sustained.
The Court reserved the question of whether the EEOC's regulation is entitled to Chevron deference. See ante, at 114. I doubt that it is possible to reserve this question while simultaneously maintaining, as the Court does, see ante, at 114-115, n. 8, that the agency is free to change its interpretation. To say that the matter is ambiguous enough to permit agency choice and to suggest that the Court would countenance a different choice is to say that the Court would (because it must) defer to a reasonable agency choice. Indeed, the concurring opinion that the Court cites for the proposition that the agency could change its position was premised on the idea that the agency was entitled to deference. See Commercial Office Products Co., supra, at 125- 126 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
I think the EEOC's regulation is entitled to Chevron deference. We have, of course, previously held that because the EEOC was not given rulemaking authority to interpret the substantive provisions of Title VII, its substantive regulations do not receive Chevron deference, but instead only receive consideration according to the standards established in Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U. S. 134, 140 (1944). See EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 257 (1991) ("[T]he level of deference afforded [the agency's judgment] 'will depend upon the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the validity of its reasoning, its consistency with earlier and later pronouncements, and all those factors which give it power to persuade, if lacking power to control' ")
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