The U.S. Supreme Court case Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Arabian American Oil Co., et al., 1990, revolved around the question of whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applied to U.S. companies' discriminatory employment practices overseas. The plaintiff was an employee who alleged that he had been discriminated against on the basis of religion and national origin while working for Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company) in Saudi Arabia, a subsidiary company owned by four major U.S oil firms. In this case, the court ruled in favor of Aramco stating that unless Congress has clearly expressed its intent to do so, legislation is meant to apply only within territorial jurisdiction of United States; hence Title VII did not apply extraterritorially to regulate employment practices abroad by US employers or foreign corporations controlled by US employers. This decision led Congress later on to amend Title VII with passage of Civil Rights Act 1991 which explicitly extended coverage internationally for employees who are citizens working for American companies abroad except where it would violate foreign law.

In the dissenting opinion for EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION v. ARABIAN AMERICAN OIL CO., Justice Marshall, joined by Justices Brennan and Blackmun, argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act should apply to U.S. companies' foreign operations. They contended that Congress intended to protect American workers from discrimination regardless of where they work in the world when it enacted this law. The majority's interpretation was seen as a departure from previous decisions which had applied other labor laws extraterritorially and failed to consider legislative history indicating an intent for broad application of anti-discrimination protections. Furthermore, they believed that limiting these protections could incentivize businesses to move jobs overseas or hire non-U.S citizens abroad who are not protected under Title VII.