Legal Developments

On June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court quietly but decisively swept away a legal barrier that for decades had made “reverse-discrimination” suits harder to pursue in much of the country. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson held that Title VII gives every worker—whether a member of a historically marginalized group or the majority—the same path to prove discrimination, and that lower courts may not graft extra pleading requirements onto claims brought by white, male, heterosexual, or otherwise majority-group plaintiffs.

The ruling came in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman with two decades at the state’s juvenile-justice agency, alleged she was twice passed over for promotion—and later demoted—for the benefit of LGBTQ colleagues. Both the trial court and the Sixth Circuit threw out her case, relying on a doctrine that required “background circumstances” showing the employer was the rare one that discriminates against majorities before a lawsuit could even move forward. Five circuits, including the Sixth, had adhered to that rule; seven did not, and two had rejected it outright—producing the sort of split the Supreme Court is fond of resolving.

Justice Jackson’s opinion traced the problem to a 1976 D.C. Circuit decision that, she said, “misread” the text of Title VII. That statute bars discrimination “because of” race, sex, or other protected traits, without regard to which group turns out to be victim or beneficiary. By demanding extra “background circumstances” evidence from majority-group plaintiffs, the Sixth Circuit had given them a steeper climb than any other claimant—something, the Court said, the statute never contemplated. In plain terms, the justices concluded, courts cannot decide that some plaintiffs must do more simply because of who they are.

The decision carries immediate consequences in twenty states and the District of Columbia, where the discarded test had still been in force. Plaintiffs in those jurisdictions now advance under the familiar three-step McDonnell Douglas framework: they make a prima-facie showing; the employer articulates a legitimate reason; the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to prove pretext. No fourth-step “background circumstances” filter survives. Employment lawyers expect a noticeable uptick in majority-group discrimination filings, particularly challenges to corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that can be framed as disadvantaging members of traditional majorities.

Any policy that confers a tangible benefit—or imposes a career hurdle—on the basis of a protected trait now invites closer scrutiny. Promotion files, bonus rationales, and reduction-in-force matrices will need meticulous documentation that decisions were driven by legitimate business criteria, not demographic targets. Meanwhile, litigators defending earlier cases premised on the Sixth Circuit test will have to withdraw or revise motions that leaned on the now-defunct standard.

The Court remanded Ames’s case for further proceedings; whether she ultimately wins will turn on more traditional questions of motive and proof. But the broader takeaway is clear: under Title VII, the doors to the courthouse must be the same width for everyone. By closing a doctrinal detour that made them narrower for some, the Supreme Court has shifted the terrain of workplace-bias litigation—and, in the process, reminded lower courts that statutory text, not judicial intuition about which groups most often suffer discrimination, sets the rules of engagement.