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The Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a straight woman in Ohio who filed a “reverse discrimination” lawsuit against her employer when her gay boss declined to promote her. The ruling will make it easier to win such suits in some parts of the country.
Despite the politically divisive debate playing out over workplace diversity efforts – a fight that has been fueled by President Donald Trump – a unanimous coalition of conservative and liberal justices signed onto that decision. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a member of the court’s liberal wing, wrote the opinion for the court.
The woman at the center of the suit, Marlean Ames, is challenging a requirement applied in five appeals courts that when members of a “majority” group raise discrimination claims they must demonstrate “background circumstances” to pursue their suit. A plaintiff might meet that requirement, for instance, by providing statistical evidence documenting a pattern of discrimination against members of a majority. Ames couldn’t do that and so she lost in the lower courts.
But Jackson said the Supreme Court’s past cases made clear that the requirements needed to bring a successful lawsuit under federal anti-discrimination law “do not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”
The “background circumstances” rule, Jackson wrote, “flouts that basic principle.”
Ames started working for Ohio’s state government in 2004 and steadily rose through the ranks at the Department of Youth Services. She claims that in 2017, she started reporting to a gay boss and was passed over for a promotion that was offered to another gay woman.
The background circumstances requirement was rooted in the notion that it is unusual for an employer to discriminate against a member of a majority group. But neither federal anti-discrimination law nor Supreme Court precedent speak to creating one set of requirements for a majority employee to file a discrimination suit and a different set for a minority employee. During oral arguments in the case in late February, it was clear Ames had widespread support from the justices.
Citing the “background circumstances” requirement, the Cincinnati-based 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Ohio. Federal appeals courts based in Denver, St. Louis, Chicago and Washington, DC, applied that same standard, according to court records.
The decision doesn’t necessarily mean that Ames – or other employees – will ultimately win their lawsuits. Rather, it wipes out a hurdle in such cases that barred some plaintiffs from demonstrating employers acted with discriminatory motive.
“We wanted to make sure that the same laws and standards apply to everyone,” Xiao Wang, who represented Ames and who is the director of the University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, told CNN. “This Supreme Court ruling makes it easier for courts to root out unlawful discrimination in the workplace.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, a member of the court’s conservative wing, joined the majority but also wrote a separate concurrence to argue against what he described as “judge-made” doctrines. In a footnote in that opinion, Thomas slammed employers and for being “obsessed” with DEI initiatives.
“A number of this nation’s largest and most prestigious employers have overtly discriminated against those they deem members of so-called majority groups,” Thomas wrote.
“American employers have long been ‘obsessed’ with ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives and affirmative action plans,” he added.
“Initiatives of this kind have often led to overt discrimination against those perceived to be in the majority,” he said.
Thomas’ argument was that the justification for the background circumstances requirement – that employers don’t usually discriminate against members of a majority group – is faulty. But his decision to go after DEI directly comes at a moment when Trump has sought to politicize workplace diversity efforts.
The case landed on the Supreme Court’s docket last fall, about a month before Trump was elected on a pledge to clamp down on diversity and inclusion efforts in both the government and the private sector. The administration has taken a number of steps in that direction, including attempting to cut funding to entities federal officials allege have supported DEI efforts. Many of those actions are being reviewed by courts.
But Ames’ case was more procedural. Notably, both the Trump and Biden administrations agreed that the 6th Circuit should reconsider its approach.
“The court made clear that this case is not over,” said Dominic Binkley, a spokesperson for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. “We look forward to fully pressing those arguments as the case moves forward because the Ohio Department of Youth Services did not engage in unlawful discrimination.”
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
