In a case filed by a heterosexual woman claiming she was discriminated against due to her sexual orientation, a unanimous United States Supreme Court held that she should not be required to meet a higher standard to prove discrimination. The plaintiff, Ms. Ames, claimed the Ohio Department of Youth Services discriminated against her when it hired a lesbian woman for a position she applied for and, soon after, demoted her and replaced her with a gay man. The Sixth Circuit denied Ms. Ames’s claim because she had not shown “background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer that discriminates against the majority.”[1] The Court, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing, vacated the Sixth Circuit’s holding and found that “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.”[2]
This ruling resolved a circuit split among appellate courts. Under the now-rejected “background circumstances” requirement, Title VII plaintiffs who were in the majority and brought a disparate treatment claim – a claim that they were discriminated against based on their race, color, religion, sex or national origin – had been required in some federal circuit courts to present evidence, in addition to Title VII’s requirements, suggesting that their employer “was the rare employer who discriminates against members of the majority group.”[3]
In support of its holding,...
Campbell’s, a renowned canned soup brand, recently terminated a high-ranking executive following the emergence of a recording in which he made racially insensitive statements and alleged that the ...