9-0 SCOTUS DECISION: Reverse Discrimination is Still Discrimination

In a case that is probably making the entire DEI bureaucracy nervously shuffle its color-coded PowerPoint slides, the justices sided with a straight white woman who claimed she was passed over (twice) so her department could check a few more boxes on the identity clipboard.

The plaintiff, Marlean Ames, a white and heterosexual longtime employee of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, was demoted and replaced by gay colleagues after years of dedicated service. Previously promoted to serve as the agency’s Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) administrator, Ames applied for a new position in 2019 but was advised by her gay supervisor to consider retiring instead. Just days later, she was hit with a demotion, a steep pay cut, and a 25-year-old gay man was promoted into her former PREA role. The other job she interviewed for? Also filled by someone who identified as gay.

But in the end, when her case got to the Supreme Court, even Biden-appointed progressive Ketanji Brown Jackson had to agree that being straight and white doesn’t make you fair game for discrimination. Who knew?! Certainly not the DEI crowd who’s been doing things like this for quite a while now – and making everyone who opposes it out to be bigots.

The 9-0 decision, which came down on the side of Ames, rejected the fact that a “majority” group (white folks) must show “background circumstances” in addition to any normal requirements to prove a claim of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – that pesky thing that clearly prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, sex (it does NOT say gender by the way) and national origin.

Lower courts had told Ames she couldn’t win unless she jumped through a special hoop called “background circumstances” – a judge-invented barrier required only if you’re part of a majority group. It refers to extra evidence that courts have sometimes required in reverse discrimination cases to show that the employer is the type of employer that might discriminate against members of a majority group.

Justice Jackson wrote for the court, “We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority-group plaintiffs.”

The Ohio ruling reinstated Ames’s discrimination lawsuit against the state agency in charge of youth correctional facilities, overturning lower court decisions that had dismissed her case for not meeting the heightened standard of proof.

So back to DEI… which is an industry that isn’t built on fairness. It’s built on power, grievance, and the idea that if you’re in a majority group, you should shut up and be happy about everyone else’s promotion and special treatment.

This court ruling didn’t outlaw DEI. It should, but it won’t. The court just said you can’t fire the straight white lady and call it equity. The dedicated DEI worshippers still have their seminars to run, pronoun buttons to distribute, and banners to hang. But if you’re one of those “boring” people with the wrong skin tone and sexual orientation, the Supreme Court just reminded everyone: You still get civil rights, too.