Standard for Proving Title VII Violation Same for Majority Plaintiffs as for Minority Plaintiffs

The Court rejected some federal circuits' rules that a majority-group plaintiff must "present[] evidence of 'background circumstances' suggesting that the [defendant] was the rare employer who discriminates against members of a majority group."

From today's unanimous (and, I think, correct) opinion in Ames v. Ohio Dep't of Youth Services (2024), written by Justice Jackson:

The Ohio Department of Youth Services operates the State's juvenile correctional system. In 2004, the agency hired petitioner Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, to serve as an executive secretary. Ames was eventually promoted to program administrator and, in 2019, applied for a newly created management position in the agency's Office of Quality and Improvement. Although the agency interviewed her for the position, it ultimately hired a different candidate—a lesbian woman—to fill the role.

A few days after Ames interviewed for the management position, her supervisors removed her from her role as program administrator. She accepted a demotion to the secretarial role she had held when she first joined the agency—a move that resulted in a significant pay cut. The agency then hired a gay man to fill the vacant program-administrator position. Ames subsequently 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 [trial] court analyzed Ames's claims under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green (1973), which establishes 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. Relying on Circuit precedent, the District Court concluded that Ames had failed to make that showing because she had not presented evidence of "'background circumstances'" suggesting that the agency was the rare employer who discriminates against members of a majority group. Without that evidence, the court held, plaintiffs who are members of majority groups—including heterosexual plaintiffs, like Ames—could not discharge their evidentiary burden at the first step of the McDonnell Douglas inquiry. The Sixth Circuit affirmed….

As a textual matter, Title VII's disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision
makes it unlawful "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." The "law's focus on individuals rather than groups [is] anything but academic." Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). 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 Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, joined the opinion, but added some further analysis criticizing the McDonell Douglas framework itself, and more broadly condemning "judges creating atextual legal rules and frameworks"; I may blog separately about that later.

Xiao Wang (U. Va. School of Law Supreme Court Litigation Clinic) represents plaintiff.