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How the Supreme Court Warped Civil Rights Laws to Undermine Civil Rights - Shahrzad Shams @ Balls and Strikes
Balls and StrikesWhile our nation’s brightest jurists have spent the last several months wrestling with just how emphatically they should greenlight Trump’s autocratic takeover, they’ve also found time to consider some of these important questions, culminating in its decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. Ames is the latest byproduct of the conservative legal movement’s weaponization of philosophical legal principles to get to the political outcomes it desires. Measures that originally intended to combat subordination of minorities are legal cudgels used to maintain and strengthen social hierarchies—all under the guise of a commitment to equality that even some liberals are taking at face value.
Marlean Ames, a straight woman, worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for a decade as an executive secretary. In 2014, she was promoted to the position of program administrator, where she received solid performance reviews from her gay supervisor. Then, in 2019, Ames applied for a promotion to bureau chief. She didn’t get it, and the position would later be filled by a gay woman. Shortly thereafter, two heterosexual higher-ups, both of whom were involved in the decision to deny her the promotion, demoted Ames back to executive secretary, resulting in a pay cut. The program administrator role was later filled by a gay man.
Ames sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and sex—including sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy status. Traditionally, these kinds of Title VII claims are analyzed under a three-step “burden-shifting” test that was established by the Supreme Court in its 1973 decision in McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green decision. Since then, the test has become an important tool for plaintiffs who suspect that their Title VII rights have been violated. Most employers aren’t dumb enough to openly say they’re firing someone for their race, gender, or other protected trait. The McDonnell Douglas framework provides workers with an accessible pathway to obtain discovery to determine whether the decision was, in fact, discriminatory.
The first step of this test usually requires the employee to provide evidence to support an inference that their employer intended to illegally discriminate against. In other words, the employee simply needs to point to something that suggests the decision was made because of their race, gender or another protected trait—in practice, a pretty light burden.
Marlean Ames, a straight woman, worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for a decade as an executive secretary. In 2014, she was promoted to the position of program administrator, where she received solid performance reviews from her gay supervisor. Then, in 2019, Ames applied for a promotion to bureau chief. She didn’t get it, and the position would later be filled by a gay woman. Shortly thereafter, two heterosexual higher-ups, both of whom were involved in the decision to deny her the promotion, demoted Ames back to executive secretary, resulting in a pay cut. The program administrator role was later filled by a gay man.
Ames sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and sex—including sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy status. Traditionally, these kinds of Title VII claims are analyzed under a three-step “burden-shifting” test that was established by the Supreme Court in its 1973 decision in McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green decision. Since then, the test has become an important tool for plaintiffs who suspect that their Title VII rights have been violated. Most employers aren’t dumb enough to openly say they’re firing someone for their race, gender, or other protected trait. The McDonnell Douglas framework provides workers with an accessible pathway to obtain discovery to determine whether the decision was, in fact, discriminatory.
The first step of this test usually requires the employee to provide evidence to support an inference that their employer intended to illegally discriminate against. In other words, the employee simply needs to point to something that suggests the decision was made because of their race, gender or another protected trait—in practice, a pretty light burden.
The Supreme Court's obsession with "color-blind" civil rights laws have made civil rights laws weaker for the groups Congress sought to protect
— Balls & Strikes (@ballsandstrikes.org) 2025-07-17T11:45:22.353Z