The Supreme Court unanimously revived a straight woman’s “reverse discrimination” case against her former employer Thursday, lowering the legal hurdle for white and straight employees to bring such lawsuits.
The 9-0 decision rejects that members of a majority group must show “background circumstances” in addition to the normal requirements to prove a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
“We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority-group plaintiffs,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, former President Biden’s sole appointee to the court, wrote for the court.
Marlean Ames, who worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for two decades