Supreme Court revives straight woman's reverse discrimination claim
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday revived a woman's claim that she was discriminated against at work because she is straight.
The unanimous ruling could make it easier in some parts of the country for people belonging to majority groups to bring such 'reverse discrimination' claims. It overturns precedent in some lower courts that says someone from a majority group has to meet a higher bar than someone from a minority group for a case to move forward.
Marlean Ames sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, after a lesbian woman obtained a promotion she had applied for. She was later demoted, and her old position was taken by a gay man.
Writing for the court, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the test had no basis in the text of Title VII or cases that have interpreted it.
"We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs," she wrote.
The ruling means Ames' case will return to lower courts and edges closer toward a trial or settlement.
"We're of course pleased that this is the end of quite a long journey for Ms. Ames," said Xiao Wang, one of her lawyers. "This was a major legal hurdle in front of her. This is something she is incredibly pleased about."
Ames has worked at the department since 2004, but the dispute arose after she began reporting to a lesbian woman in 2017. She was denied the promotion she sought two years later and demoted soon after that. She was at work on Thursday when the Supreme Court ruled.
The state says Ames was demoted because new leadership in the agency wanted to restructure its operations to focus on sexual violence in the juvenile corrections system. Ames had led a program aimed at combating rape in prison but was seen as difficult to work with, according to the state's court papers.
Officials involved in making those decisions are straight, the state has pointed out.
Lower courts, including the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled for the state agency. Ames then turned to the Supreme Court.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court Grants Musk-Less DOGE Access to Social Security Data
Elon Musk may be persona non grata at the White House, but DOGE lives on. The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Department of Government Efficiency should be allowed access to Social Security Administration data, lifting a previously issued injunction that blocked the department from doing so. While the court's majority did not provide a detailed explanation of their ruling, they did write, 'We conclude that, under the present circumstances, SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.' The three liberal justices dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioning the urgency of the application and expressing concerns about the potential privacy risks that would result from the ruling. She wrote, 'In essence, the 'urgency' underlying the government's stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes.' The Trump administration had previously argued that DOGE employees needed access to SSA data in order to halt fraudulent payments, but a federal judge in Maryland ruled that DOGE being granted such access violated federal law and put millions of people's data at risk. Two unions—the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the American Federation of Teachers—brought the lawsuit alongside the Alliance for Retired Americans. The groups argued that allowing DOGE broader access to individuals' personal data would violate the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. 'The agency is obligated by the Privacy Act and its own regulations, practices, and procedures to keep that information secure—and not to share it beyond the circle of those who truly need it," their lawyers wrote. The data DOGE employees now have access to includes Social Security numbers, medical records, and tax and banking information. In her dissent, Jackson argued that the Supreme Court had 'truly lost its moorings,' by allowing the move and bending its usual standards to accommodate the Trump administration, adding, 'The Court is… unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this Administration.'
CBS News
23 minutes ago
- CBS News
Supreme Court halts lower court orders requiring DOGE to hand over information about work and personnel
Elon Musk on DOGE and his work in and out of government Elon Musk on DOGE and his work in and out of government Elon Musk on DOGE and his work in and out of government Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday halted lower court orders that required the White House's Department of Government Efficiency to turn over information to a government watchdog group as part of a lawsuit that tests whether President Trump's cost-cutting task force has to comply with federal public records law. The order from the high court clears DOGE for now from having to turn over records related to its work and personnel, and keeps Amy Gleason, identified as its acting administrator, from having to answer questions at a deposition. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. "The portions of the district court's April 15 discovery order that require the government to disclose the content of intra–executive branch USDS recommendations and whether those recommendations were followed are not appropriately tailored," the court said in its order. "Any inquiry into whether an entity is an agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act cannot turn on the entity's ability to persuade. Furthermore, separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal executive branch communications." The Supreme Court sent the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for more proceedings. Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused the district court's order last month, which allowed the Supreme Court more time to consider the Trump administration's bid for emergency relief. A district judge had ordered DOGE to turn over documents to the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, by June 3, and for Gleason's deposition to be completed by June 13. The underlying issue in the case involves whether DOGE is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. CREW argues that the cost-cutting task force wields "substantial independent authority," which makes it a de facto agency that must comply with federal public records law. The Justice Department, however, disagrees and instead claims that DOGE is a presidential advisory body housed within the Executive Office of the President that makes recommendations to the president and federal agencies on matters that are important to Mr. Trump's second-term agenda. DOGE's agency status was not before the Supreme Court, though the high court may be asked to settle that matter in the future. Instead, the Trump administration had asked the justices to temporarily halt a district court's order that allowed CREW to gather certain information from DOGE as part of its effort to determine whether the task force is an advisory panel that is outside FOIA's scope or is an agency that is subject to the records law. The judge overseeing the dispute, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, had ordered DOGE to turn over certain documents to the watchdog group by June 3 and to complete all depositions, including of Gleason, by June 13. Mr. Trump ordered the creation of DOGE on his first day back in the White House as part of his initiative to slash the size of the federal government. Since then, DOGE team members have fanned out to agencies across the executive branch and have been part of efforts to shrink the federal workforce and shutter entities like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Institute of Peace. DOGE has also attempted to gain access to sensitive databases kept by the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management, prompting legal battles. In an effort to learn more about DOGE's structure and operations, CREW submitted an expedited FOIA request to the task force. After it did not respond in a timely manner, CREW filed a lawsuit and sought a preliminary injunction to expedite processing of its records request. The organization argued that DOGE was exercising significant independent authority, which made it an agency subject to FOIA. Cooper granted CREW's request for a preliminary injunction in March and agreed that FOIA likely applies to DOGE because it is "likely exercising substantial independent authority much greater than other [Executive Office of the President] components held to be covered by FOIA." He then allowed CREW to conduct limited information-gathering, which the watchdog group said aimed to determine whether DOGE is exercising substantial authority that would bring it within FOIA's reach. A federal appeals court ultimately declined to pause that order, requiring DOGE to turn over the documents sought by CREW. In seeking the Supreme Court's intervention, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said CREW is conducting a "fishing expedition" into DOGE's activities. He warned that if Cooper's order remains in place, several components of the White House, such as the offices of the chief of staff and national security adviser, would be subject to FOIA. "That untenable result would compromise the provision of candid, confidential advice to the president and disrupt the inner workings of the Executive Branch," Sauer wrote. "Yet, in the decisions below, the court of appeals and district court treated a presidential advisory body as a potential 'agency' based on the persuasive force of its recommendations — threatening opening season for FOIA requests on the president's advisors." But lawyers for CREW told the Supreme Court in a filing that the Justice Department's position "would require courts to blindly yield to the Executive's characterization" of the authority and operations of a component of the Executive Office of the President. They said adopting the Trump administration's approach to DOGE would give the president "free reign" to create new entities within the Executive Office of the President that exercise substantial independent authority but are shielded from transparency laws. "Courts would be forced to blindly accept the government's representations about an EOP unit's realworld operations, unable to test those representations through even limited discovery," CREW's lawyers wrote. "It is that extreme position, not the discovery order, that would 'turn[] FOIA on its head.'"
25 minutes ago
Utah judge rules a convicted killer with dementia is competent to be executed
SALT LAKE CITY -- A convicted killer in Utah who developed dementia while on death row for 37 years is competent enough to be executed, a state judge ruled late Friday. Ralph Leroy Menzies, 67, was sentenced to die in 1988 for killing Utah mother of three Maurine Hunsaker. Despite his recent cognitive decline, Menzies 'consistently and rationally understands" what is happening and why he is facing execution, Judge Matthew Bates wrote in a court order. 'Menzies has not shown by a preponderance of the evidence that his understanding of his specific crime and punishment has fluctuated or declined in a way that offends the Eighth Amendment,' which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, Bates said. Menzies had previously selected a firing squad as his method of execution. He would become only the sixth U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since 1977. The Utah Attorney General's Office is expected to file a death warrant soon. Menzies' lawyers, who had argued his dementia was so severe that he could not understand why he was being put to death, said they plan to appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. 'Ralph Menzies is a severely brain-damaged, wheelchair-bound, 67-year-old man with dementia and significant memory problems,' his attorney, Lindsey Layer, said in a statement. 'It is deeply troubling that Utah plans to remove Mr. Menzies from his wheelchair and oxygen tank to strap him into an execution chair and shoot him to death.' The U.S. Supreme Court has spared others prisoners with dementia from execution, including an Alabama man in 2019 who had killed a police officer. Over nearly four decades, attorneys for Menzies filed multiple appeals that delayed his death sentence, which had been scheduled at least twice before it was pushed back. Hunsaker, a 26-year-old married mother of three, was abducted by Menzies from the convenience store where she worked. She was later found strangled and her throat cut at a picnic area in the Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah. Menzies had Hunsaker's wallet and several other belongings when he was jailed on unrelated matters. He was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes. Matt Hunsaker, who was 10 years old when his mother was killed, said Friday that the family was overwhelmed with emotion to know that justice would finally be served.
