The Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services last week that cleared the way for a reverse discrimination lawsuit to move forward under Title VII of the Civil Right Act. But as one employment lawyer told HR Brew, the ruling probably won’t affect future HR decisions in any meaningful way.
Marlean Ames, a straight woman, sued her employer of 20 years in 2020, claiming so-called reverse discrimination and that she had been passed over for jobs because of her sexual orientation in favor of a lesbian woman and gay man.
On June 5, the Supreme Court struck down the background circumstances rule, which said that a person in the majority needs to meet a different burden of proof than those in minority populations, as HR Brew previously reported.
“Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote in the Court’s opinion.
Lower courts had ruled against Ames, finding she needed to make an additional showing of “background circumstances” to support the suspicion that the defendant was that unusual employer that discriminates against the majority, in this case heterosexual employees. However, the Supreme Court sided with her and reinstated the lawsuit.
Justice Jackson explained that the additional “background circumstances” requirement was inconsistent with Title VII.
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The Ames case may now go back to the lower courts to determine if she was discriminated against based on her sexual orientation.
“It was a ruling we were expecting,” Aaron Warshaw, a labor and employment shareholder at Ogletree Deakins, told HR Brew.
The 9-0 decision may feel unlikely in 2025, but Warshaw said it’s not surprising and fairly routine. Both the Biden and Trump administrations had said the background circumstances rule should be overturned. “They’re common on somewhat non-controversial issues, which is really what the underlying issue was here.”
"Really, what the court was focused on was pretty narrow," Warshaw said, adding that the "technical question" being asked is, does Title VII stand on its own or is there an additional requirement?
The case may appear more significant due to the discourse around DEI in recent years, according to Warshaw, so the decision’s context and timing is important. However, in practice, the rule doesn’t change anything for HR leaders, he suggested.
“Decisions should be business decisions…That was permitted before, and it’s still permitted” Warshaw said, adding, “discrimination is discrimination, and no one in the workforce should be subjected to employment decisions simply because of their membership in a protected class. So in some sense, nothing has changed.”