The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether it should be more difficult for workers from “majority backgrounds,” such as white or heterosexual people, to prove workplace discrimination claims.
The justices took up an appeal by Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, seeking to revive her lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Youth Services in which she said she lost her job to a gay man and was passed over for a promotion in favor of a gay woman in violation of federal civil rights law.
The Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided last year that she had not shown the “background circumstances” that courts require to prove that she faced discrimination because she is straight, as she alleged.
She brought her lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark federal law banning workplace discrimination based on traits including race, sex, religion and national origin.
Since the 1980s, at least four other U.S. appeals courts have adopted similar hurdles to proving discrimination claims against members of majority groups, largely in cases involving white men. Those courts have said the higher bar is justified because discrimination against those workers is relatively uncommon.
But other courts have said that Title VII does not distinguish between bias against minority and majority groups.
A Supreme Court ruling in favor of Ames could provide a boost to the growing number of lawsuits by white and straight workers claiming they were discriminated against under company diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
