Update: on June 5, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision holding that the legal standard is the same for all plaintiffs bringing workplace discrimination suits under Title VII, regardless of whether or not they are a member of an historically disadvantaged group. Justice Jackson, writing for the Court, held that there is no basis in Title VII itself or in the Supreme Court cases construing it for requiring majority-group members to make an additional evidentiary showing of “background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.” The Court’s decision harmonizes varying standards in federal courts across the country.

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On January 24, 2025, NWLC joined an amicus brief led by the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund to the U.S. Supreme Court in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services.

In this case, the plaintiff is claiming that her employer denied her a promotion for being heterosexual. She is asking the Supreme Court to interpret federal employment-discrimination law—Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—in a way that ignores the realities of this country’s persisting legacy of discrimination in evaluating claims like hers.

Our brief explains that, while the lower court made an error when addressing certain legal principles in the case, it reached the correct result in ruling that the plaintiff had not presented sufficient evidence of discrimination. We urge the Supreme Court to reaffirm the importance of Title VII’s protections for all employees and reject any rule that would prevent courts from considering the realities of how discrimination tends to operate in our society.