Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

In 1978 Congress decided to overrule our decision in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125 (1976), by amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “to prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.”1 On the effective *671date of the Act, petitioner amended its health insurance plan to provide its female employees with hospitalization benefits for pregnancy-related conditions to the same extent as for other medical conditions.2 The plan continued, however, to provide less favorable pregnancy benefits for spouses of male employees. The question presented is whether the…