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Won’t someone think of the cis, straight white Americans? Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court definitely is. On Friday, the justices agreed to take up an appeal by Marlean Ames, an Ohio woman who claims that she faced workplace discrimination due to being heterosexual. The Supreme Court is now tasked with deciding whether appeals courts should apply a higher standard when members of majority groups such as white or heterosexual people make discrimination claims.
In 2020, Ames filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Youth Services under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans workplace discrimination on the grounds of traits like race, sex, religion, and national origin. The district court issued a summary judgement in favor of the state, dismissing the lawsuit. Ames appealed the case and in December 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, upheld the lower court’s decision in favor of the state of Ohio, finding that Ames did not provide “background circumstances” showing that a member of the relevant minority group — in this case, the LGBTQ+ community — made the employment decisions which affected Ames, or that there is a pattern of discrimination by the Ohio Department of Youth Services against members of the majority group (a.k.a. straight people).
According to court documents, the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which oversees juvenile felony offenders, hired Ames in 2004. In 2014, she was promoted to the position of Administrator of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), an at-will position from which she could be dismissed without cause.
In 2017, Ames was assigned to a new supervisor, Ginine Trim, who is gay. By 2019, Ames applied for and interviewed to become the department’s Bureau Chief of Quality, a position for which she ultimately wasn’t chosen. After the interview, Trim allegedly suggested that Ames retire. In May 2019, Ames was fired from her job as PREA Administrator and given the option to return to her previous role, a demotion which would reduce her pay from $47.22 per hour to $28.40 per hour. The department hired 25-year-old Alexander Stojsavlejevic, who is a gay man, as her PREA Administrator replacement. That December, Yolanda Frierson, a gay woman, was hired as the department’s Bureau Chief of Quality.
As court documents note, Ames was fired from her role as PREA Administrator by Department Director Ryan Gies and Assistant Director Julie Walburn, both of whom are heterosexual. Ames was also unable to produce evidence establishing a pattern of employment discrimination against heterosexuals because the only examples she provided were her own demotion and the fact that she was not hired as the department’s Bureau Chief of Quality.
Now, the Supreme Court will determine whether members of majority backgrounds should have to provide such evidence of “background circumstances.”
As Reuters notes, should the Supreme Court rule in favor of Ames, they could make it easier for white, cisgender, and straight workers to claim that they were discriminated against due to their companies’ diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. At the time of writing, it is unclear when exactly the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Ames’ case, although Supreme Court sessions typically last from October until late June or early July of the following year.
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