The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously sided with a woman who sued her employer, claiming she was discriminated against because she is straight.
Marlean Ames, who worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for more than 15 years, claims she was denied a lucrative promotion because she’s heterosexual and says the position was ultimately given to a gay woman. She further alleges she was later demoted from her role as a program administrator and replaced by a gay man.
Ames sued her employer under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. However, a federal district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the agency, agreeing that Ames had not met the legal standard to prove discrimination.
In a rare unanimous decision on Thursday, the nation’s highest court ruled the appeals court was wrong to require Ames to demonstrate “background circumstances” — an extra burden placed on majority-group plaintiffs in discrimination cases.
Writing for the court, liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stated that under Title VII, plaintiffs do not need to meet a higher burden just because they belong to a majority group.
“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,” she wrote.
Xiao Wang, one of Ames’ attorneys, applauded the justices’ decision saying it was “the end of quite a long journey” for Ames, whose case will now return to a lower court and and edges closer toward a trial or settlement.
“This was a major legal hurdle in front of her,” Wang said, according to NBC News. “This is something she is incredibly pleased about.”
The decision could could make it easier in some parts of the country to bring similar “reverse discrimination” claims. It will also affect lawsuits in 20 states and Washington, D.C., where courts had previously imposed a higher bar for majority-group plaintiffs, including white and heterosexual people.
With News Wire Services
