Supreme Court sides with straight woman in decision that makes it easier to file ‘reverse discrimination’ suits

The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a straight woman in Ohio who filed a “reverse discrimination” lawsuit against her employer when her gay boss declined to promote her. The ruling will make it easier to file such suits in some parts of the country.

Despite the politically divisive debate playing out over workplace diversity efforts – a fight that has been fueled by President Donald Trump – a unanimous coalition of conservative and liberal justices were in the majority. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the opinion for the court.

“Our case law thus makes clear that the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group,” Jackson wrote.

Marlean Ames started working for Ohio’s state government in 2004 and steadily rose through the ranks at the Department of Youth Services. She claims that in 2017, she started reporting to a gay boss and was passed over for a promotion that was offered to another gay woman.

Ames is challenging a requirement applied in five appeals courts across the nation that “majority” Americans raising discrimination claims must demonstrate “background circumstances” in order to pursue their suit. A plaintiff might meet that requirement, for instance, by providing statistical evidence documenting a pattern of discrimination against members of a majority. Ames couldn’t do that and so she lost in the lower courts.

An employee who is a member of a minority group does not face that same initial hurdle.

The requirement was rooted in the notion that it is unusual for an employer to discriminate against a member of a majority group. But neither federal anti-discrimination law nor Supreme Court precedent speak to creating one set of requirements for a majority employee to file a discrimination suit and a different set for a minority employee. During oral arguments in the case in late February, it was clear Ames had widespread support from the justices.

Citing the “background circumstances” requirement, the Cincinnati-based 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Ohio. Federal appeals courts based in Denver, St. Louis, Chicago and Washington, DC, applied that same standard, according to court records.

At a moment when Trump has politicized workplace diversity efforts, both the court’s conservative and liberal justices – as well as the attorneys arguing the case – appeared to agree that the 6th Circuit’s analysis was wrong.

The case landed on the Supreme Court’s docket last fall, about a month before Trump was elected on a pledge to clamp down diversity and inclusion efforts in both the government and the private sector. The administration has taken a number of steps in that direction, including but attempting to cut funding to entities federal officials allege have supported DEI efforts. Many of those actions are being reviewed by courts.

But Ames’ case was more procedural. Notably, both the Trump and Biden administrations agreed that the 6th Circuit should reconsider its approach.