Straight to Justice
On June 5th, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered some common sense by its decision in the case of Ames v. Ohio. Hereafter, all litigants in employment discrimination suits will be held to the same evidentiary standards, regardless of sexual orientation.
Twenty-four years ago, Malean Ames, a straight woman, took a job at the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which oversees juvenile corrections. In 2019, the Department rejected Ames for a newly created managerial position in favor of a lesbian. Later the Department demoted Ames – with a significant pay cut – and awarded her vacated position of Program Administrator to a gay man. Ames filed suit under Title VII alleging discrimination on account of her heterosexuality. Accordant with the Sixth Circuit’s case law at the time, Ohio responded that Ames had a higher evidentiary threshold since she alleged discrimination against herself as a member of a majoritarian demographic.
Getting back to basics, any sensible person knows that it would be wrong to reject a job applicant based on the applicant being gay. That would be discrimination in the way employment litigation usually uses that term. Namely, making a choice which detriments a job applicant. Yet “discrimination” itself is a judgment-neutral term since it can go either way. A job applicant can be “discriminated into” a position based on certain criteria. If an applicant’s homosexuality is what convinces an employer to hire him, this would be an instance of discrimination favoring the applicant.
In some circles, it has been argued that this kind of favorable discrimination should be used to hire perceived members of “underrepresented” demographics for certain positions. Thus, to rectify past prejudice, employers should resort to discrimination favoring applicants based on their demographics. What such proponents fail to grasp is that discrimination favoring one applicant is discrimination disfavoring another, and if its basis is some immutable characteristic such as race, sex or orientation as Title VII lists, then it is just as blameworthy… and illegal.
The decision does not reflect whether Ohio’s Department of Youth Services hired the other applicants based on their orientation. We only know that the appellant Ames attributes their hiring to that bias. In its 9-0 interlocutory decision, SCOTUS levelled the playing field by ruling that Ames need adduce no more proof than other similarly situated plaintiffs, at least in the stage of summary judgment. Summary judgment is when a litigant asks the court to rule in his favor without the hassle of a trial since he believes the case’s facts merit a judgment on the law. Time will tell whether Ames prevails on her claim.
It took some time, but it appears SCOTUS arrived at a conclusion which would have been a no-brainer for any Libertarian: everyone deserves a fair chance at justice, no matter whom they love.
