Two recent cases involving workplace discrimination found the U.S. Supreme Court deciding in favor of the workers. In both, the court gave welcome deference to past rulings. It also showed itself less fiercely divided than it tended to be last year, another positive development.

In one case, a manager at a Cracker Barrel restaurant asserted that he was fired for complaining about racial bias. Hedrick Humphries, who is black, had accused a supervisor of making racist remarks. He also asserted that another restaurant worker had been fired because she was black. Despite having received positive performance reviews, Mr. Humphries himself was fired. He sued, claiming retaliation for his complaints.

In a 7-to-2 decision, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that civil-rights laws had long protected workers from such race-based retaliation. Mr. Humphries prevailed.

In a second case, Myrna Gomez-Perez also claimed retaliation. As a 45-year-old employee of the U.S. Postal Service in Puerto Rico, she claimed she was denied a transfer she sought because of her age. After filing a complaint, she said, her supervisors began retaliating. In her case, the issue was whether Congress had made protection against retaliation explicit with respect to federal employees. In a 6-to-3 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito Jr., the court looked at previous rulings to find that such protection did indeed apply. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joined the dissenters, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who had also dissented in the Cracker Barrel case.

Both of these decisions seem fair-minded. They also represent a heartening departure from last term’s dismaying discrimination ruling against a Goodyear tire-plant manager. In that case, a 5-to-4 majority held that Lilly Ledbetter waited too long to claim that she was being paid less than males in the same job. Besides ignoring workplace realities, the decision ignored several appeals-court rulings and the longstanding position of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

As the court absorbs its two newest conservative members, it has had to strike a new balance. This term, there have been plenty of conservative rulings, such as the recent decision in favor of individual gun rights. But the court appears less polarized overall. We hope that trend continues, along with a reluctance to disturb settled law.