U.S. Supreme Court removes barriers to proving ‘reverse discrimination’

On June 5, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a woman who claims she was the victim of “reverse discrimination” in the workplace should be allowed to go forward with her case.

The justices agreed that a federal appeals court in Ohio was wrong to impose a higher bar for the case than it would have if the woman had been a member of a minority group.

This higher bar, called “background circumstances,” has been a requirement in five appeals courts around the country. It meant that when members of a “majority” group raised discrimination claims, they had to demonstrate “background circumstances” to pursue their suit.

A plaintiff could, for example, meet that requirement by providing documentation proving a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority. In this case, the woman couldn’t do that and so she lost in the lower courts.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote the opinion for the court, said the Supreme Court’s past cases made clear that the requirements needed to bring a successful lawsuit under federal anti-discrimination law “do not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”

The “background circumstances” rule, Jackson wrote, “flouts that basic principle.”

“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,” Jackson wrote.

The decision in Ames v. Ohio doesn’t necessarily mean that the woman who filed the case – or other employees – will win their lawsuits. Rather, it eliminates a hurdle in such cases that kept some plaintiffs from demonstrating employers acted with discriminatory motives.

While this ruling may put more employers at risk for discrimination lawsuits, it doesn’t change the laws prohibiting workplace discrimination. All employment decisions should be made based on an employee’s qualifications and work performance, rather than factors such as a person’s sex, race, age, or other characteristics.

Key to remember: Some federal courts set a higher bar for proving workplace discrimination if an employee was part of the “majority.” That requirement has been deemed wrong in a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services