US Supreme Court lowers the burden of proof in’reverse discrimination.

In a recent ruling, the US Supreme Court ruled that people who are members of majority groups can sue their employers for discrimination.

The Justices voted unanimously in favor of making it easier for white people and heterosexuals to bring “reverse discrimination cases”.

The decision was made in response to a case brought by an Ohio woman, who claimed she had been discriminated against at her job due to being heterosexual.

Marlean Ames worked as a programme administrator for the Ohio Department of Youth Services from 2004 to 2018. She began her career with the department in 2004 as an executive secretary and later became a programme director. Ames’s new gay supervisor stated that Ames exceeded expectations in one category and met them in ten others in her performance evaluation for 2018.

Ames began the dispute in 2019 when she applied for a position at the department. She was not only denied the job she applied for, but was also demoted into a position where her salary per hour was less than half of what it was before.

Ames filed a suit in federal court alleging she was the victim of discrimination at work based on sexual orientation. She claimed that the department hired a lesbian to fill the position she sought and a gay man as her replacement after she was demoted.

She claimed in a lawsuit that her employer preferred LGBTQ employees and had denied her the opportunity to advance because she identified as straight.

Ames appealed the Supreme Court’s standards for burden of proof after lower courts found that Ames had not provided enough evidence to support her claim.

In some US states, such as Ohio, a precedent from the US courts required members of minority groups to provide additional evidence or background circumstances in order to prove their claim.

The court ruled now that the standard for evidence in a claim of discrimination should be the exact same regardless of the identity of the person. The federal appeals court of Cincinnati was wrong in imposing a higher standard for Ames’ case than if Ames were a member a minority group.

The Supreme Court found that the lower court’s decision was in conflict with the federal employment discrimination laws, which prohibited discrimination for everyone, without making a distinction between members of minority groups and members of majority groups.

Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson wrote that by establishing the same standards for all individuals, regardless of whether they belong to a majority or minority group, Congress did not leave any room for courts imposing special requirements only on plaintiffs from majority groups.

The justices stated that it was the lower courts who had originally ruled against her, to assess the case according to the clarified standards of evidence.

Experts in the field of law say that proving employment discrimination or bias can be difficult, regardless of whether it is a burden of proof.

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