Supreme Court Agrees To Consider Woman’s Claim She Lost Job Because She Is Not Gay

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider a woman’s claim that she was demoted because she is straight.

Marlean Ames, who began working for the Ohio Department of Youth Services in 2004, sued the department for sex-based discrimination in 2020, alleging she did not receive a promotion and was later demoted because she is a “heterosexual woman,” according to court records

Ames brought her case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans sex-based workplace discrimination. The justices agreed to weigh in on whether a heightened standard should be required for members of a “majority-group” to bring such claims.

The Sixth Circuit rejected Ames’ case in December 2023, finding she did not demonstrate the “background circumstances” required of a “majority group” member.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Raymond Kethledge, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that he disagreed with the rule his court was forced to apply.

“Thus, to state the obvious, the statute bars discrimination against ‘any individual’ on the grounds specified therein,” he wrote. “Yet our court and some others have construed this same provision to impose different burdens on different plaintiffs based on their membership in different demographic groups.”

Kethledge noted that “nobody disputes that Ames has established the other elements of her prima-facie case, which would be enough to establish that case if she were a gay person.”

“[T]wice in one year the Department promoted an arguably less qualified gay employee in a manner adverse to Ames; and in promoting one of those employees, Yolanda Frierson, the Department circumvented its own internal procedures because Frierson lacked the minimum qualifications for the job,” he wrote.