June 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that a straight woman can move forward with her Title VII Civil Rights Act job discrimination lawsuit, which claimed “reverse discrimination.”
The justices voted 9-0 to side with Marlean Ames, ruling that she faced a higher burden to be able to sue for discrimination as a straight woman after she was passed up for job opportunities in favor of two LGBTQ applicants.
“We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority-group plaintiffs,” the court wrote.
Ames sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services after she was denied a management position in favor of a lesbian woman hired for that job.
She also lost out on another job at the agency when a gay man was hired instead as a program administrator.
The lower court judgment was vacated and the Ames case was remanded back to the lower court to be heard applying the Supreme Court’s finding.
The decision said the Sixth Circuit erred when it “implemented a rule that requires certain Title VII plaintiffs-those who are members of majority groups-to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard.”
The ruling makes it easier for majority-group plaintiffs to argue “reverse discrimination” lawsuits.
At issue was the “background circumstances” rule.
As interpreted by the Sixth Circuit, that rule requires members of a majority group to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard in Title VII lawsuits.
“Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” the Supreme Court decision said.
“The Sixth Circuit’s ‘background circumstances’ rule requires plaintiffs who are members of a majority group to bear an additional burden at step one. But the text of Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs.”
The Supreme Court said that provision “focuses on individuals rather than groups, barring discrimination against ‘any individual’ because of protected characteristics.”
The high court rejected Ohio’s argument that the “background circumstances” rule does not subject majority-group plaintiffs to a heightened legal standard when they sue alleging discrimination under Title VII.
“The ‘background circumstances’ rule — which subjects all majority-group plaintiffs to the same, highly specific evidentiary standard in every case — ignores the Court’s instruction to avoid inflexible applications of the prima facie standard,” the Supreme Court wrote.
The Supreme Court held that “the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”
The Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”
Ohio maintained Ames was not chosen for the jobs in question due to her lack of the necessary vision and leadership skills, not because she was straight.
A three-judge Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel agreed that Ames would have been likely to prevail if she was a gay woman.
But they ruled against her due to the higher burden created by the Sixth Circuit interpretation of the “background circumstances” rule.
