Supreme Court sides with woman claiming anti-straight job discrimination

The Supreme Court sided with a woman claiming workplace bias. Photo / Getty Images

The United States Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a straight woman who claimed she faced bias in the workplace after she was passed over for positions that went to gay colleagues. The decision will make it easier for people who are white, male or not gay to prove bias claims.

The justices unanimously struck down a standard, used in nearly half of the nation’s federal circuits, that required members of groups that historically have not faced discrimination to meet a higher bar to prove workplace bias than members of minority groups.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the only black woman on the high court, wrote the opinion that sided with Marlean Ames, a former Ohio state government employee who argued it was unconstitutional to have different standards for different groups of people.

“Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Jackson wrote in the ruling, portions of which she read from the bench.

The decision revived Ames’ discrimination claim against the agency overseeing youth corrections facilities in Ohio, sending it back to lower courts that had ruled she failed to meet the higher bar of proof.

“Little did I know at the time that I filed that my burden was going to be harsher than somebody else’s burden to prove my case,” Ames said in an interview this year. “I want people to try and understand that we’re trying to make this a level playing field for everyone. Not just for a white woman in Ohio.”

The case, known as Ames v. Ohio Youth Department, coincides with President Donald Trump’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Trump has issued executive orders targeting DEI programmes in the federal Government and has ordered the Justice Department and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission to investigate programs in the private sector.

Ames’ case does not directly implicate DEI initiatives, but employment lawyers have said a ruling for her, and the backlash against DEI, could add pressure on companies to rethink programs aimed at protecting and elevating members of minority groups.

Corporations and employment lawyers were also closely watching Ames’ case because many thought a ruling in her favour could result in more workplace discrimination claims by members of majority groups.

Ames’ attorney dismissed that idea, saying federal circuits that did not employ the higher standard of proof have not seen more claims of reverse discrimination in the workplace than circuits that did use that standard.

Ames started at the Ohio Department of Youth Services as an executive secretary in 2004, eventually being promoted to oversee a programme to combat sexual assault in juvenile facilities.

She received raises and good reviews along the way, and applied for a management role for the first time in 2019. Months later, her direct supervisor presented her with a pin and told Ames she should retire. Ames, who was 55 and had spent three decades working for the government, was taken aback.

Her lawsuit claims she was soon called to meet with an assistant director of the department and a human resources official, who gave her an ultimatum: take a demotion or be out of a job.

Ames said she reluctantly agreed to go back to the executive secretary position she originally held at the department, taking a pay cut of about 40%. A 25-year-old protege of hers – a gay man – got her administrator job. Ames alleges he lacked the minimum qualifications for the position.

“I was absolutely devastated,” Ames said in an interview.

She was also passed over for another management role, which went to a woman whom Ames considered to be less qualified. Ames said the woman, who is a lesbian, had not initially expressed interest in the job.

Ames sued for job discrimination. The Ohio Department of Youth Services denied in court filings that there was any anti-straight bias against her.

The director of the department at the time said Ames lost her administrator job because her supervisors did not believe she had the skills or vision to effectively address sexual victimisation in the state’s juvenile facilities. He described Ames’ workplace demeanour as “abrasive” and said she did poorly in her interview for the second management role.

At oral argument, Ohio Solicitor General T. Elliot Gaiser did not spend much time defending the higher standard of proof required by the federal courts in Ohio. Instead, he said Ames’ claim would have failed regardless of the standard because she was not able to marshal evidence of anti-straight bias.

Ames said in an interview that no one at the state agency made derogatory comments about her sexual orientation and she was unaware of any other instances of alleged discrimination against straight people in the department. The supervisors who made the hiring decisions in Ames’ case were straight and she had no data demonstrating anti-straight bias in the department.

Her lawsuit quickly foundered in lower courts. A judge granted summary judgment for Ames’ employer, and an appeals court followed suit, saying she had failed to prove her claim.

The federal judiciary’s Sixth Circuit, which covers Ohio, is among those that have required members of majority groups to meet a standard of proof not required of minorities – known as “background circumstances” – to mount a circumstantial discrimination case. They must show that their employer is the unusual one that discriminates against majority groups, which have not historically faced discrimination.

Typically, plaintiffs must either show that an allegedly discriminatory decision was made by a member of the relevant minority group, or marshal statistical evidence showing a pattern of bias against members of majority groups by the employer.

Ames’ lawyer, Xiao Wang, told the justices during oral argument in February that having different standards for majority and minority groups fundamentally violated Title VII, the portion of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on sex, race, colour, religion or national origin.

The attorney directed the justices to an inscription carved on the outside of the high court: “Equal Justice Under Law.”

“All Ms. Ames is asking for is equal justice under law,” Wang said. “Not more justice … but certainly not less. And certainly not less because of the color of her skin or because of her sex or because of her religion.”

Ames had an unusual set of allies in the case. Her position was backed by both the Biden administration and the far-right America First Legal, which was helmed by Stephen Miller, now a top policy adviser to President Donald Trump. America First Legal has attacked DEI initiatives and filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of White people alleging discrimination.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote an opinion concurring with the majority that was joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, said the Ames case revealed the danger of courts creating special frameworks to interpret laws.

“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.”