Main: Marlean Ames (CBS News). Inset: Members of the Supreme Court sit for a new group portrait in Washington, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Bottom row, from left, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite).
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of a heterosexual Ohio woman who claims that she was the victim of what many have called “reverse discrimination” at the hands of the Ohio Department of Youth Services (ODYS).
In the ruling, all nine justices held that there are no extra requirements for discrimination plaintiffs who belong to a majority group.
Marlean Ames worked for ODYS for 18 years, but after she began reporting to a new supervisor who is gay, she applied for but did not get a promotion. Shortly after being passed over for the position, Ames was removed from her then-current role, and given the option to take a role she had previously held that carried a substantially lower salary.
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The department then hired a gay woman for the position that Ames had sought and a gay man to fill the position from which Ames was removed. Ames claims that both individuals were less qualified for the positions and that she was discriminated against because of her sexuality. ODYS disputes Ames’ claims and says the staffing changes were the result of agency-wide restructuring and that Ames had difficulties getting along with co-workers.
Ames sued for violation of her rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and lost at both the district and circuit court levels. Both courts ruled that Ames, as a heterosexual person, needed and failed to present evidence of “background circumstances” that suggested ODYS was discriminating against members of a majority group.
At issue before the Supreme Court was whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule really is applicable and requires different evidence from members of a minority versus a majority group.
In a nine-page opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for the Court and rejected the “‘background circumstances” rule entirely.
Jackson wrote that Title VII bars employers from intentionally discriminating against their employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin — and that its requirements are no different for majority group members. Jackson explained that the 6th Circuit’s rule simply cannot be squared with Supreme Court precedent and noted that Ohio presented no justification for imposing a heightened evidentiary standard on majority-group plaintiffs.
“By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’ — without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group — Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Jackson wrote.
Justice Clarence Thomas penned a 13-page concurring opinion which was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. In it, Thomas warned that the framework established in 1973 to evaluate employment discrimination claims may not be “workable and useful.”
“Judge-made doctrines have a tendency to distort the underlying statutory text, impose unnecessary burdens on litigants, and cause confusion for courts,” Thomas wrote. “The ‘background circumstances’ rule — correctly rejected by the Court today — is one example of this phenomenon.”
The Court’s ruling Thursday does not mean that Ames wins her case against ODYS, only that her claim may proceed on its merits.
You can read the Court’s full ruling here.
