WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Supreme Court this week heard arguments from a case filed by a straight woman claiming she was denied promotions over her gay colleagues—the case could have significant implications on whether members of majority groups must meet a heightened burden when proving employment discrimination, reported the New York Times.
The case follows the Trump administration’s recent efforts to strike down workplace diversity, a central issue in political and legal debates, said the New York Times.
All the justices agreed “an appeals court had gone badly astray in imposing a heightened burden for members of majority groups seeking to prove workplace discrimination,” said the Times.
Marlean A. Ames, reported The New York Times, is a former administrator of the Ohio Department of Youth Services. Five years into her position, she applied for a promotion—but was denied in favor of a gay woman with less experience and no college degree. She was later demoted from her position and replaced by a gay man with less seniority, receiving a significant pay cut.
Ames sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex—a category the Supreme Court has previously ruled includes sexual orientation, stated the New York Times.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against Ames on the grounds that she failed to meet the “background circumstances” requirement, which requests proof that an employer is an “unusual” case of discriminating against the majority, reported the New York Times.
Lawyers from both the Trump and Biden administrations, as well as justices across all ideologies, disagreed with the lower court’s ruling and agreed that requiring proof based on a plaintiff’s identity was not legally justifiable, said the New York Times.
Justice Elena Kagan, the NY Times noted, said the only question the Supreme Court should decide in this case 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.”
The New York Times said conservative legal groups have “filed supporting briefs taking aim at the notion that discrimination against white employees, straight people and men is in any way unusual.”
Meanwhile, the Times adds, civil rights organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund caution Title VII was historically intended to remove discrimination against marginalized groups, noting that widespread discrimination against white and straight employees remains rare and should be considered in legal interpretation.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., was the only SCOTUS justice to briefly touch upon those issues, stating, “The rule that the Sixth Circuit applied was apparently based on an intuition about the way in which most employers behave,” reported the Times.
During the argument, local government representatives warned that ruling for Ames would open the “floodgates” for more employment discrimination lawsuits, the NY Times wrote.
One of Ames’s lawyer’s, Xiao Wang, noted over half of federal appeals courts do not impose the heightened standard requirement, adding “we don’t see those circuits having some sort of flood of litigation,” added the New York Times.
