Supreme Court rules for straight woman who claims she was subjected to reverse discrimination 

The Supreme Court on Thursday sent the case of an Ohio woman who contends that she was the victim of reverse discrimination back to the lower courts. In a unanimous ruling by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justices agreed that a federal appeals court in Cincinnati was wrong to impose a higher bar for the case brought by Marlean Ames to move forward than if Ames had been a member of a minority group. 

Ames had worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for 15 years, starting as an executive secretary in 2004 and eventually becoming a program administrator. In her 2018 performance evaluation, Ames’s new supervisor, who is gay, indicated that Ames met expectations in 10 categories and exceeded them in an 11th. 

The dispute began in 2019, when Ames applied for a new position within the department. Not only did she not get that job, but she was also demoted to a previous position, where her hourly salary was just over half of what she had previously been making. 

Ames filed a lawsuit in federal court, alleging that she had been the victim of employment discrimination based on her sexual orientation. The department had hired a lesbian for the position that she had sought, she contended, as well as a gay man to replace her after she was demoted. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit threw out Ames’s sexual orientation claim. Because Ames is straight, the court of appeals explained, her claim could not go forward unless she could show “background circumstances” to support her allegations of reverse discrimination – for example, evidence that a member of a minority group made the allegedly discriminatory decision or showing a pattern of discrimination against members of a majority group. But in this case, the court of appeals emphasized, the department officials who actually made the hiring and demotion decisions were straight, and there was no “pattern” of reverse discrimination. 

In a nine-page decision on Thursday, the court revived Ames’s claim and sent the case back to the lower court for another look under the proper standard. Federal employment discrimination law, Jackson explained, prohibits intentional discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 

The Supreme Court has outlined a three-step test for discrimination claims. At the first step – the one at issue in Ames’s case – a plaintiff must produce enough evidence to support an inference that the employer intended to discriminate. This is generally, Jackson wrote, not a high bar: “A plaintiff may satisfy it simply by presenting evidence ‘that she applied for an available position for which she was qualified, but was rejected under circumstances which give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination.’” But the court of appeals in this case, Jackson continued, incorrectly added an additional requirement, directing Ames to “establish ‘background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.’” 

The 6th Circuit’s rule, Jackson wrote, is inconsistent with the text of the federal employment discrimination law, which bars discrimination against everyone – without distinguishing between members of a minority group and members of 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.” 

The Supreme Court’s cases, Jackson added, also make clear that the test for showing discrimination in a case like Ames’s “does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.” “The ‘background circumstances’ rule flouts that basic principle,” she concluded. 

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion that was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thomas suggested that the three-step test that the court has developed to use in discrimination claims – known as the McDonnell Douglas framework – “lacks any basis in the text of” federal employment discrimination law “and has proved difficult for courts to apply.” “In a case where the parties ask us to do so,” he concluded, he “would be willing to consider” overruling it.