U.S. Supreme Court Eliminates Heightened Standard for Reverse Discrimination Claims
On June 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that places reverse discrimination claims on equal footing with traditional discrimination claims under federal law. Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, 605 U.S. ___ (2025). The plaintiff, a heterosexual woman, claimed her employer denied her a promotion and demoted her on the basis of her sexual orientation. The Sixth Circuit dismissed her claims, finding she had failed to surpass the additional hurdle required in reverse discrimination claims to identify “background circumstances” demonstrating the Ohio Department of Youth Services was the “unusual employer” that discriminates against members of a majority group. The Supreme Court rejected the “background circumstances” test, which had been adopted by five lower Circuits, and held that majority-group members cannot be subject to a heightened burden of proof because the text of Title VII makes no such distinction. Now, federal judges and agencies can no longer assume that historically disadvantaged groups are more likely to be subject to discrimination in the workplace. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote: “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.” The full decision is available here. Moving forward, we expect that...