New Delhi: The US Supreme Court Thursday ruled in favour of a straight woman who claimed to have lost out on job opportunities because they were given to her colleagues from the LGBTQ+ community. The ruling is being seen as having the potential to cause companies in the US to reorient themselves against DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies.
In the unanimous ruling, the court sided with Marlean Ames, a former administrator at the Ohio Department of Youth Affairs. According to media reports, Ames was initially denied a promotion, and then demoted.
The Ohio Department of Youth Services denied she was treated unfairly.
The circuit court of appeal, an American appellate court, had initially dismissed Ames’ discrimination claim. It told her that she “needed to show evidence that those within a minority group had made the discriminatory decision”. However, her supervisors who made hiring decisions were heterosexual.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown, described as “liberal-leaning” and the only black woman delivering the ruling, said that Title 7 (of the Civil Rights Act, 1964) does not “impose a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs”. In effect, the bar to prove discrimination is not any higher for majority groups than it is for minorities.
A legal expert quoted by The Washington Post said the ruling could “accelerate legal trends” triggered by the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, which struck down “race conscious” admission policies in American universities.
“Various programmes that were implemented to improve minorities’ opportunities at companies have been increasingly challenged as discriminatory,” she told The Post. “Really what this case does is that it further bolsters that position.”
In an interview with The Post, Ames said that while she wasn’t discriminated against for her sexual orientation—no derogatory remarks were made—she sued for job discrimination because both roles she was up for were given to younger “unqualified members” of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Little did I know at the time that I filed that my burden was going to be harsher than somebody else’s burden to prove my case,” she said. “I want people to try and understand that we’re trying to make this a level playing field for everyone. Not just for a White woman in Ohio.”
US President Donald Trump has also criticised DEI policies and initiatives, with his government banning such initiatives within the administration and firing hundreds of staffers employed through DEI.
The department of education is also currently looking into 52 universities that have been accused of using “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programmes and activities”.
The US government is further spending 2 million dollars to investigate whether a plane crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was caused by DEI policies, The Atlantic reported.
A New York University Law School database looks at about 100 ongoing cases in the US justice system related to DEI efforts.
Conservatives, according to a report in The Guardian, see this time as a determining moment for the DEI policy—there is no better time for it to be done away with, they say.
“The goal of these organisations is to file as many lawsuits as possible, get as many cases pushed through the courts…to try to get the Supreme Court to review it and reach a decision,” David Glasgow, head of the Meltzer Center, which has built the database, told The Guardian. “They realise it’s a 6-3 conservative supermajority Supreme Court right now.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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