This case arises out of actions that supervisors at petitioner Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company took against respondent Sheila White, the only woman working in the Maintenance of Way department at Burlington’s Tennessee Yard. In June 1997, Burlington’s roadmaster, Marvin Brown, interviewed White and expressed interest in her previous experience operating forklifts. Burlington hired White as a ‘‘track laborer,’’ a job that involves removing and replacing track components, transporting track material, cutting brush, and clearing litter and cargo spillage from the right-ofway. Soon after White arrived on the job, a co-worker who had previously operated the forklift chose to assume other responsibilities. Brown immediately assigned White to operate the forklift. While she also performed some of the other track laborer tasks, operating the forklift was White’s primary responsibility.

   In September 1997, White complained to Burlington officials that her immediate supervisor, Bill Joiner, had repeatedly told her that women should not be working in the Maintenance of Way department. Joiner, White said, had also made insulting and inappropriate remarks to her in front of her male colleagues. After an internal investigation, Burlington suspended Joiner for 10 days and ordered him to attend a sexual-harassment training session.  

   On September 26, Brown told White about Joiner’s discipline. At the same time, he told White that he was removing her from forklift duty and assigning her to perform only standard track laborer tasks. Brown explained that the reassignment reflected co-worker’s complaints that, in fairness, a ‘‘‘more senior man’’’ should have the ‘‘less arduous and cleaner job’’ of forklift operator.

   On October 10, White filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission). She claimed that the reassignment of her duties amounted to unlawful gender-based discrimination and retaliation for her having earlier complained about Joiner. In early December, White filed a second retaliation charge with the Commission, claiming that Brown had placed her under surveillance and was monitoring her daily activities. That charge was mailed to Brown on December 8.  

   A few days later, White and her immediate supervisor, Percy Sharkey, disagreed about which truck should transport White from one location to another. The specific facts of the disagreement are in dispute, but the upshot is that Sharkey told Brown later that afternoon that White had been insubordinate. Brown immediately suspended White without pay. White invoked internal grievance procedures. Those procedures led Burlington to conclude that White had not been insubordinate. Burlington reinstated White to her position and awarded her backpay for the 37 days she was suspended. White filed an additional retaliation charge with the EEOC based on the suspension.

   After exhausting administrative remedies, White filed this Title VII action against Burlington in federal court. As relevant here, she claimed that Burlington’s actions— (1) changing her job responsibilities, and (2) suspending her for 37 days without pay—amounted to unlawful retaliation in violation of Title VII. [Citation.] A jury found in White’s favor on both of these claims. It awarded her $43,500 in compensatory damages, including $3,250 in medical expenses. * * *  

   Initially, a divided Sixth Circuit panel reversed the judgment and found in Burlington’s favor on the retaliation claims. [Citation.] The full Court of Appeals * * * affirmed the District Court’s judgment in White’s favor on both retaliation claims. * * *

   Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision forbids employer actions that ‘‘discriminate against’’ an employee (or job applicant) because he has ‘‘opposed’’ a practice that Title VII forbids or has ‘‘made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in’’ a Title VII ‘‘investigation, proceeding, or hearing.’’ [Citation.] No one doubts that the term ‘‘discriminate against’’ refers to distinctions or differences in treatment that injure protected individuals. [Citations.] But different Circuits have come to different conclusions about whether the challenged action has to be employment or workplace related and about how harmful that action must be to constitute retaliation.  

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   * * * The anti-discrimination provision seeks a workplace where individuals are not discriminated against because of their racial, ethnic, religious, or gender-based status. [Citation.] The anti-retaliation provision seeks to secure that primary objective by preventing an employer from interfering (through retaliation) with an employee’s efforts to secure or advance enforcement of the Act’s basic guarantees. The substantive provision seeks to prevent injury to individuals based on who they are, i.e., their status. The anti-retaliation provision seeks to prevent harm to individuals based on what they do, i.e., their conduct.

   To secure the first objective, Congress did not need to prohibit anything other than employment-related discrimination. The substantive provision’s basic objective of ‘‘equality of employment opportunities’’ and the elimination of practices that tend to bring about ‘‘stratified job environments,’’ [citation], would be achieved were all employment-related discrimination miraculously eliminated.  

   But one cannot secure the second objective by focusing only upon employer actions and harm that concern employment and the workplace. Were all such actions and harms eliminated, the anti-retaliation provision’s objective would not be achieved. An employer can effectively retaliate against an employee by taking actions not directly related to his employment or by causing him harm outside the workplace. [Citations.] A provision limited to employment-related actions would not deter the many forms that effective retaliation can take. Hence, such a limited construction would fail to fully achieve the anti-retaliation provision’s ‘‘primary purpose,’’ namely, ‘‘[m]aintaining unfettered access to statutory remedial mechanisms.’’ [Citation.]

   Thus, purpose reinforces what language already indicates, namely, that the anti-retaliation provision, unlike the substantive provision, is not limited to discriminatory actions that affect the terms and conditions of employment. [Citation.]

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   * * * [W]e conclude that Title VII’s substantive provision and its anti-retaliation provision are not coterminous. The scope of the anti-retaliation provision extends beyond workplace-related or employment-related retaliatory acts and harm. * * * 

   The anti-retaliation provision protects an individual not from all retaliation, but from retaliation that produces an injury or harm. * * * In our view, a plaintiff must show that a reasonable employee would have found the challenged action materially adverse, ‘‘which in this context means it well might have ‘dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’’’ [Citation.]

   * * * The anti-retaliation provision seeks to prevent employer interference with ‘‘unfettered access’’ to Title VII’s remedial mechanisms. [Citation.] It does so by prohibiting employer actions that are likely ‘‘to deter victims of discrimination from complaining to the EEOC,’’ the courts, and their employers. [Citation.] And normally petty slights, minor annoyances, and simple lack of good manners will not create such deterrence. [Citation.]  

   We refer to reactions of a reasonable employee because we believe that the provision’s standard for judging harm must be objective. An objective standard is judicially administrable. It avoids the uncertainties and unfair discrepancies that can plague a judicial effort to determine a plaintiff’s unusual subjective feelings. * * *

   We phrase the standard in general terms because the significance of any given act of retaliation will often depend upon the particular circumstances. Context matters. * * *  

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   Applying this standard to the facts of this case, we believe that there was a sufficient evidentiary basis to support the jury’s verdict on White’s retaliation claim. [Citation.] The jury found that two of Burlington’s actions amounted to retaliation: the reassignment of White from forklift duty to standard track laborer tasks and the 37- day suspension without pay

   * * * Our holding today makes clear that the jury was not required to find that the challenged actions were related to the terms or conditions of employment. And insofar as the jury also found that the actions were ‘‘materially adverse,’’ its findings are adequately supported.  

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   To be sure, reassignment of job duties is not automatically actionable. Whether a particular reassignment is materially adverse depends upon the circumstances of the particular case, and ‘‘should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, considering ‘all the circumstances.’’’ [Citation.] But here, the jury had before it considerable evidence that the track labor duties were ‘‘by all accounts more arduous and dirtier’’; that the ‘‘forklift operator position required more qualifications, which is an indication of prestige’’; and that ‘‘the forklift operator position was objectively considered a better job and the male employees resented White for occupying it.’’ [Citation.] Based on this record, a jury could reasonably conclude that the reassignment of responsibilities would have been materially adverse to a reasonable employee.

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   * * * White did receive backpay. But White and her family had to live for 37 days without income. They did not know during that time whether or when White could return to work. Many reasonable employees would find a month without a paycheck to be a serious hardship. And White described to the jury the physical and emotional hardship that 37 days of having ‘‘no income, no money’’ in fact caused. [Citation.] Indeed, she obtained medical treatment for her emotional distress. A reasonable employee facing the choice between retaining her job (and paycheck) and filing a discrimination complaint might well choose the former. That is to say, an indefinite suspension without pay could well act as a deterrent, even if the suspended employee eventually received backpay. [Citation.] Thus, the jury’s conclusion that the 37-day suspension without pay was materially adverse was a reasonable one.