## Facts

- United employed Carolyn Evans as a flight attendant from November 1966 to February 1968.
- United enforced a policy barring female flight attendants from being married; after Evans married, she was forced to resign in 1968.
- Evans did not file a timely EEOC charge challenging the 1968 forced resignation.
- United rehired Evans in February 1972 but refused to credit her with seniority for service before that date, treating her as a new employee.
- United’s general practice was to deny prior-service seniority credit to rehired employees, regardless of sex.
- In 1973, Evans filed an EEOC charge alleging ongoing sex discrimination based on denial of pre-1972 seniority.

## Issues

1. Whether United’s refusal in 1972–73 to credit Evans with pre-1972 seniority was a present, continuing violation of Title VII when the 1968 forced resignation was not timely charged.
2. Whether Title VII § 703(h) barred the claim absent allegations that the seniority system was not bona fide or was intentionally discriminatory in design or operation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit and reinstated the district court’s dismissal.
- Assuming the 1968 forced resignation violated Title VII, the Court held that the time-barred act had no present legal consequences by itself.
- The Court held that applying a neutral seniority system that recognized Evans’s break in service was not a present Title VII violation.
- The Court further held that § 703(h) protected the seniority system because it was neutral in operation and was not alleged to be intentionally discriminatory.

## Legal Principles

- A discriminatory act not made the basis for a timely EEOC charge is treated as having no present legal consequences, though it may be used as background evidence when a current practice is otherwise challenged.
- The continuing-violation concept requires a present unlawful employment practice; ongoing effects of a past, time-barred act do not alone establish a current violation.
- Under Title VII § 703(h), a bona fide seniority system that is facially neutral and not intentionally discriminatory is lawful even if it perpetuates effects of earlier, time-barred discrimination.
- Retroactive seniority may be awarded as a remedy only after a timely proven Title VII violation; it cannot be used to obtain relief for an uncharged, time-barred discriminatory act.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Evans could not transform an unchallenged, time-barred discriminatory resignation into a current Title VII claim by pointing to its ongoing effect within a neutral seniority system, and that § 703(h) insulated the bona fide seniority system absent allegations of intentional discrimination.


United Air Lines, Inc. v. Evans, 431 U.S. 553 (1977)