SCOTUS Sides With Employee in Reverse Discrimination Case

In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, 605 U.S. ____ (2025), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Sixth Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule, which requires members of a majority group to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to prevail on a Title VII discrimination claim, is not consistent with either the text of Title VII or the Court’s existing precedents.

Facts of the Case

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Under the Court’s Title VII precedents, a plaintiff may make out a prima facie case of disparate treatment by showing “that she applied for an available position for which she was qualified, but was rejected under circumstances which give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination.”

In this case, Petitioner Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services in various roles since 2004. In 2019, the agency interviewed Ames for a new management position but ultimately hired another candidate—a lesbian woman. The agency subsequently demoted Ames from her role as a program administrator and later hired a gay man to fill that role. Ames then filed this lawsuit against the agency under Title VII, alleging that she was denied the management promotion and demoted because of her sexual orientation.

The District Court granted summary judgment to the agency, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The lower courts analyzed Ames’s claims under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. (1973), which sets forth the traditional framework for evaluating disparate-treatment claims that rest on circumstantial evidence. At the first step of that framework, the plaintiff must make a prima facie showing that the defendant acted with a discriminatory motive. 

Like the District Court, the Sixth Circuit held that Ames had failed to meet her prima facie burden because she had not shown “‘background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.’” The appeals court reasoned that Ames, as a straight woman, was required to make this showing “in addition to the usual ones for establishing a prima-facie case.”

Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed. “We hold that this additional ‘background circumstances’ requirement is not consistent with Title VII’s text or our case law construing the statute,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. “Accordingly, we vacate the judgment below and remand for application of the proper prima facie standard.”

In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court found that the text of Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Instead, the provision focuses on individuals rather than groups, barring discrimination against “any individual” because of protected characteristics. “By establishing the same protections for every ‘individual’—without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone,” Justice Jackson wrote.
The Supreme Court went on to emphasize that its case law also makes clear 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 ‘background circumstances’ rule flouts that basic principle,” Justice Jackson wrote. Citing Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S. 324 (1977), the Court further found that 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.