https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...tion-marlean-ames-straight-lgbtq/82268898007/
https://archive.is/VmQd8
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/X5Brs
WASHINGTON – The
Supreme Court agreed on June 5 that a worker faced a higher hurdle to sue her employer
as a straight woman than if she'd been gay.
The unanimous decision, which landed amid a
national backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, could trigger a wave of “reverse discrimination” lawsuits.
The justices rejected a lower court’s ruling that Marlean Ames could not sue the Ohio Department of Youth Services because she’d failed to provide “background circumstances” showing the department was “that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
That’s a test created in 1981 by a federal appeals court used by some, but not most, of the federal courts when assessing claims brought under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in 1981 that while white people are covered by the Civil Rights Act, it defied common sense “to suggest that the promotion of a black employee justifies an inference of prejudice against white co-workers in our present society.”
But the law itself, which bans discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin,” doesn’t set different thresholds for members of minority and majority groups.
Ames’ lawyers told the justices her suit would not have been dismissed at this stage of the litigation had she been gay and the employees who got the jobs she wanted were straight.
During the court’s discussion of the case in February, Ohio’s solicitor general did not defend the “exact language” the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used when rejecting Ames’ suit over insufficient “background circumstances.” But T. Elliot Gaiser, the solicitor general, argued that Ames still failed to show enough evidence that her sexual orientation played any role in the hiring decisions she questioned.
Ames twice lost jobs at the Ohio Department of Youth Services to other candidates she thought were less qualified, both of whom were gay.
The department said she was passed over for a promotion because she lacked the necessary vision and leadership skills, not because she happened to be straight.
Officials said she was then demoted from her administrator position because she wouldn’t bring a proactive approach to the department’s increased emphasis on combatting sexual violence in the juvenile corrections system.
The
Supreme Court’s decision in Amex v. Ohio Department of Youth Services doesn’t settle Ames’ discrimination claim but only revives it for additional court proceedings.
Here is the woman who is suing for discrimination
Thank you to
@Robot Gentleman for the full text of the decision written by the sheboon herself!
Unanimous decision penned by Justice Jackson no less.
Full text
Lots of the usual posturing from Thomas in the concurrence but he's completely right this time, it's ridiculous that this courts have to be told not to add this kind of bullshit when it couldn't reasonably be inferred anywhere from the text of the statute.