By Matthew Vadum
Contributing Writer
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled unanimously in favor of an Ohio woman who alleged the state of Ohio demoted her because she is heterosexual.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the court’s 9-0 opinion in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services.
The new ruling may make it easier for members of non-minority groups to demonstrate employment discrimination in lawsuits.
Jackson wrote that the nation’s highest court had to resolve whether a plaintiff who belongs to “a majority group must also show ‘background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority,’” as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit previously ruled.
“We hold that this additional ‘background circumstances’ requirement is not consistent” with the text of Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act or with the Supreme Court’s precedents interpreting that law, she added.
Petitioner Marlean Ames, a straight woman, has been employed at the Ohio Department of Youth Services since 2004. She started off as an executive secretary and, after repeated promotions, became a program administrator, according to the petition filed in March 2024.
In 2017, she began reporting to a woman who identifies as homosexual. She applied to be promoted to the position of bureau chief of quality but did not receive the promotion. The candidate who was ultimately hired had not sought the position and allegedly “lacked the minimum qualifications” for it. The department “[circumvented] its own internal procedures” to promote the candidate, the petition says.
Subsequently, the department took the program administrator position away from Ames and allowed her to choose between termination or demotion. The department then installed a gay man as program administrator, even though he was not qualified, the petition adds.
When the case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the court cited the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green (1973) and ruled that “Ames’s prima facie case” of discrimination based on sexual orientation was “easy to make,” the petition states.
The McDonnell Douglas decision held that before a plaintiff may move forward with an employment discrimination claim, he first must show he has at least a prima facie case.
Prima facie means that a claim that is before a court has merit when accepted at face value and can be legally sufficient to prove a fact or a case unless disproved later.
