What is Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services?
Marlean Ames, a straight woman and longtime employee of the Ohio Department of Youth Services, sued her employer under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, alleging she was passed over for a promotion and demoted because her employer discriminated against her based on her heterosexuality. Title VII protects people from workplace discrimination based on several protected characteristics.
Ames lost her trials in lower courts, but the Supreme Court accepted her petition for certiorari on Oct. 4, 2024, and recently heard oral arguments on her case. Ames’ constitutional question concerns whether additional evidence should be required to establish a Title VII case against an employer for a plaintiff who belongs to a majority group. Some legal scholars are expecting a decision in Ames’ favor after hearing oral arguments.
The Supreme Court case Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services looms large on this term’s docket for a few reasons — namely, its potential to clear up some questions about Title VII and the McDonnell framework.
The McDonnell Framework
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court case McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green decided the prima facie (case establishing) discrimination requirement Ames calls into question. In McDonnell, it was decided that the burden of proof first lies with the petitioner, who must bring forward a prima facie discrimination case in Title VII suits.
The plaintiff may present this prima facie discrimination case by proving that they’re part of a racial minority, sought out a position accepting applications, were rejected even though they were qualified, and that after the rejection, the position remained open with the same qualification standards. After the prima facie case is established, the defendant gives a non-discriminatory explanation for the hiring or firing decision. Finally, the plaintiff can argue that the provided reason was merely a pretext and the real reason was discrimination.
Long story short: The plaintiff first claims there was employment discrimination, then the defendant gives a nondiscriminatory reason for the contested action, and finally, the plaintiff has the opportunity to rebut the defendant’s reason for the contested action as false and uphold that the true reason is still discriminatory.
What Makes Ames Unique
The legal understanding of Title VII cases has developed a lot since McDonnell in 1973. One precedential case that impacts our current understanding of the framework is McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Company. This case demonstrated that people who were part of a majority group could prove discrimination just like those in a minority group and was argued just three years after McDonnell. Also, having similar names for the trials confuses me, too.
Contextualizing Ames in both the McDonnell framework and the McDonald precedent is crucial for understanding how Ames filed a suit in the first place. She claimed a prima facie case of discrimination (within the McDonnell framework) as a member of a majority group (a similar fact pattern to McDonald) based on her sexuality.
For the record, Title VII says nothing about majority or minority groups in its text, just discrimination. A more textualist interpretation of Title VII makes the term “reverse discrimination” inaccurate to how the law truly protects citizens. Discrimination can apply to either majority or minority groups; there’s no “reversing.” For that matter, Title VII also doesn’t mention sexuality explicitly. However, the case Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia decided that sexuality was inextricably bound to sex (a listed characteristic in Title VII), and so it could also be protected.
All of this is to say the field of Title VII litigation is evolving rather rapidly these days, with cases like Bostock making huge waves. Ames has the potential to do the same by opening courts to all kinds of different Title VII cases.
If Ames is successful and the prima facie burden of evidence is slightly lowered, that means many more litigants would have the chance to have their day in court, for better or for worse.
What the Media Might be Missing
This case is easy to sensationalize because the facts are a little different from most other Title VII cases. News sources are capitalizing on that with titles emphasizing the “reverse discrimination” language and contextualizing this case in current political debates.
Although some of these articles may use eye-catching titles, plenty of them do a fairly good job of covering some of the history of the case and its potential impact. However, many outlets are missing the forest for the trees; if this case shakes out in Ames’ favor (which it appears it may), there’s the potential for a broader application of Title VII, and with that comes many more litigants.
While Ames has interesting constitutional implications, it could also change the way courts work procedurally to bear the burden of more cases. Even if Ames doesn’t win, there are likely to be more legal testers, and the way that impacts lower courts will be interesting to observe.
If Ames wins, it will change the legal landscape of Title VII suits forever, and it could even cause lower courts to become flooded with anti-discrimination cases at an unprecedented rate, something that may take some adjusting to.
It’ll be interesting to observe how the lower court landscape adapts; it’s something to watch out for after the Ames decision is released this summer.
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