Supreme Court unanimously revives straight woman's ‘reverse discrimination' lawsuit
The 9-0 decision rejects that members of a majority group must show 'background circumstances' in addition to the normal requirements to prove a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
'We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority-group plaintiffs,' Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, former President Biden's sole appointee to the court, wrote for the court.
Marlean Ames, who worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for two decades, sued under the landmark law over claims she was passed over for a promotion and demoted in favor of gay colleagues.
Ames appealed to the Supreme Court after lower judges ruled in favor of Ohio, finding that Ames hadn't shown proven 'background circumstances' that indicate hers is the unusual case where an employer is discriminating against the majority.
Ohio's Department of Youth Services hired Ames in 2004 and a decade later promoted her to become administrator of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
In 2019, she interviewed for another job at the department but was not hired. Her gay supervisor suggested she retire, and days later, Ames was demoted with a significant pay cut. A 25-year-old gay man was then promoted to become PREA administrator. And months later, the department chose a gay woman for the role Ames unsuccessfully applied for.
A three-judge 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel agreed that Ames would've prevailed if she was a gay woman. But they ruled against her since she didn't meet the additional requirement as part of a minority group.
Ames' appeal at the Supreme Court was supported by the Justice Department, the American First Legal Foundation and the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, among others. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and the National Association of Counties were among those that filed briefs backing Ohio.
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