By John Kruzel, Andrew Chung and Daniel Wiessner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared to lean on Wednesday toward making it easier for people from “majority backgrounds,” such as white or straight people, to pursue workplace discrimination claims, as they heard an appeal by an Ohio woman who claims she was denied a promotion and demoted because she is heterosexual.
The justices heard arguments in a case in which plaintiff Marlean Ames has asked them to revive her civil rights lawsuit against her employer, Ohio’s Department of Youth Services, after lower courts sided with the state. The justices – liberal and conservative alike – seemed poised to throw out a ruling against Ames by the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and direct lower courts to reconsider the matter.
Ames, 60, has argued that she was discriminated against in violation of a landmark federal anti-discrimination law. Ames said she had a gay supervisor in 2019 when she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a gay woman and demoted in favor of a gay man – both of whom, she asserted, were less qualified than her. Ames sued in 2020 seeking monetary damages.
A ruling in favor of Ames could bolster the growing number of lawsuits by white and straight workers claiming illegal bias – often called “reverse discrimination” – amid a backlash by conservatives and Republicans against initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in the workforce. On his first day back in office in January, Republican President Donald Trump ordered the dismantling of such policies in federal agencies and encouraged private companies to follow suit.
At issue in the Ames case is the requirement by some U.S. courts that plaintiffs from majority groups provide more evidence than minority plaintiffs to show they faced discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This law prohibits discrimination based on characteristics such as race, religion, national origin and sex – including sexual orientation.
These courts have said the higher bar is justified because discrimination against those workers is relatively uncommon. The 6th Circuit concluded in 2023 that Ames had not shown the required “background circumstances” indicating that a defendant accused of workplace bias is “that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
Xiao Wang, the lawyer arguing for Ames, said the Supreme Court has decided in prior rulings that “Title VII aims to eradicate all discrimination in the workplace.”
“But the background circumstances rule doesn’t do that. It doesn’t eradicate discrimination,” Wang said. “It instructs courts to practice it by sorting individuals into majority and minority groups based on their race, their sex or their protected characteristic” and applying an evidentiary presumption against plaintiffs “based solely on their being in a majority group, however you define it.”
‘THE WRONG WAY’
Ashley Robertson, arguing for the U.S. Justice Department, said a ruling favoring Ohio would risk screening out meritorious discrimination cases. The burden on plaintiffs is already high, Robertson said, and the 6th Circuit in this case added an additional requirement that many plaintiffs cannot meet.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Robertson to address Ohio’s concern that a ruling in favor of Ames would open a floodgate of workplace discrimination suits.
Robertson said the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces laws against job bias, dropped the heightened standard nearly two decades ago and that other mechanisms exist for the EEOC and courts to screen out frivolous cases.
“We share Ohio’s concerns with making sure that meritless cases don’t reach trial,” Robertson added. “We simply think that raising the standard at step one would be exactly the wrong way to address that concern.”
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that the position being argued by Elliot Gaiser, the lawyer for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, would impose too heavy a burden on plaintiffs at the initial stage of their legal proceeding.
Gaiser said that Ohio “agrees it is wrong to hold some litigants to a higher standard because of their protected characteristics” but said that is not what happened in this case. Gaiser said Ames failed to establish that anybody was motivated by sexual orientation in making the employment decisions that affected her “or even knew her sexual orientation – nor the orientation” of the two gay employees.
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan said Gaiser seemed to agree with Ames on the case’s central issue.
“The question presented is whether a majority group plaintiff has to show something more than a minority group plaintiff – here, whether a straight person has to show more than a gay person,” Kagan said. “Everybody over here says, ‘No.’ You say, ‘No,’ too.”
Kagan told Gaiser he was now asking the justices to weigh in on various other matters “that are really not intertwined at all with that question.”
(Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington, Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, and Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
