U.S. Supreme Court Holds that Same Employment Discrimination Standards Apply to Plaintiffs who are Members of a Majority Group
June 18, 2025
By: Colin A. Walker
In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, decided on June 5, 2025, the United States Supreme Court vacated a lower court’s ruling that members of a “majority group” had to satisfy a more stringent standard to state a claim for employment discrimination (so-called “reverse discrimination”), under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the primary employment discrimination law in the United States.
The plaintiff, a heterosexual woman, was demoted and denied a promotion. She was replaced by a gay man and a lesbian woman was promoted to the position she sought. The trial court dismissed her case, holding that she had failed to present evidence of “background circumstances suggesting that the [defendant] was the rare employer who discriminates against members of a majority group,” an established principle in some federal circuits, but not others. Since the plaintiff was heterosexual, the court held that she was a member of a majority group and had to satisfy this higher standard. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s dismissal.
Reversing the Court of Appeals, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing from a unanimous Supreme Court, held, “the ‘background circumstances’ rule cannot be squared with the text of Title VII or our longstanding precedents.” Justice Jackson explained, “Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs.” Discriminatory preference for any group, she wrote, “minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress has proscribed in Title VII.” The Court concluded, “the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”
This resolves a split among the federal circuits and makes it clear that the same standards apply to majority and minority groups for discrimination in employment under Title VII.