Clarence Page: Don't let ‘reverse discrimination' reverse our national progress

Chicago Tribune

02-03-2025

Marlean Ames of Akron, Ohio, is not gay or a member of a racial minority.
But, please, she points out, don't hold that against her, as she alleges her employers have, as she takes her 'reverse discrimination' case all the way to the Supreme Court.
I wish her well. As an African American male, I strongly oppose unfair discrimination against any race, gender or sexual orientation, although I also know the charge can be very difficult to prove.
Or, at least, it has been. Ames' case aims to change that and, considering how much the high court and official Washington have shifted to the right of late, she could hardly have chosen a more opportune time to try.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in her case, Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, which has drawn a lot of attention since it could redefine how discrimination claims of all types are handled under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The core issue is whether so-called majority-group plaintiffs, legal language for white or heterosexual employees who allege discrimination, are so unusual that they must meet a higher standard of evidence than other plaintiffs in such cases.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund argued in a friend-of-the-court brief in the case that different standards were appropriate for majority and minority groups because minorities are historically the target of discrimination.
Before Ames' suit went to trial, lower courts ruled against her, finding that she was unable to meet that standard. Ames' lawyers argue that the standard is unconstitutional.
So does Donald Trump's administration and conservative legal groups.
Joe Biden's administration also filed an amicus brief in support of Ames' position, as Jurist reported, 'with former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar agreeing that the background circumstances requirement is not supported by the text of Title VII.'
On the other side were conservative groups like America First Legal, founded by prominent Trump aide Stephen Miller, which has campaigned nationwide against DEI programs as vigorously as his better-known campaign to tighten border restrictions.
'It is highly suspect in this age of hiring based on 'diversity, equity and inclusion,'' he has said, that minority groups face more discrimination on the job than majority groups do.
That faint praise is a backhanded tribute to the success of DEI campaigns, even as many Americans still scratch their heads in confusion over what DEI really is.
Having covered civil rights debates off and on for about a half-century, I am reminded of perhaps the most famous reverse discrimination case: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the 1978 landmark Supreme Court case that challenged the use of racial quotas in college admissions.
The court ruled in favor of Bakke, striking down racial quotas while allowing race to be considered as one of many factors in admissions.
When the high court ruled against specific racial quotas, many defenders of such policies mourned the beginning of the end for civil rights reforms. Instead, the effort to protect and defend civil rights continues despite periodic pushbacks, yet also with many refinements and improvements.
As more people than ever seem to be quoting Martin Luther King Jr.'s immortal plea for 'all men' to 'not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,' I am reminded that he was not being descriptive about the present as much as hopeful for a better future.
Our best way to get there as Americans is to help each other up, as we work together despite our many divisions, and not to waste too much energy trying to put each other down.
In that spirit, I wish Marlean Ames well, and I hope the Supreme Court will be wise in its judgment. There's nothing simple about our racial, gender and other conflicts, but finding solutions together despite our petty differences has served us well in the past and it still can work again, if we can build faith in each other.
Ames has taken on a complicated task, trying to work her way through our national tangle of history, group conflicts and tribal rivalries, looking for what most of us want: peace and justice.
I only hope the Supreme Court comes up with a decision that, even if we don't love it, we can work with it.