WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, in a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a discriminatory “background circumstances” standard in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, a landmark civil rights case in which America First Legal (AFL) filed an amicus brief. In its ruling, the Court adopted AFL’s argument in affirming unequivocally that Title VII protects all Americans equally and without exception. Additionally, in his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas directly cited AFL’s brief twice and made arguments consistent with AFL’s brief in other portions.
This case challenged the unlawful premise that “non-minority” and heterosexual plaintiffs alleging employment discrimination under Title VII must provide additional “background circumstances” to establish a legitimate claim, simply because of their “identity.”
Today, the Supreme Court rejected this inherently discriminatory standard as fundamentally inconsistent with Title VII and the principle of equal protection under the law, holding that “the Sixth Circuit’s ‘background circumstances’ rule cannot be squared with the text of Title VII or our longstanding precedents.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing for the unanimous Court, explained that “Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone … the standard for proving disparate treatment under Title VII does not vary based on whether or not the plaintiff is a member of a majority group.”
“Nothing in Title VII’s text supported the discriminatory ‘background circumstances’ requirement. It was a judicial fabrication, completely untethered to any statutory language,” said Nick Barry, America First Legal Senior Counsel. “The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision correcting this, along with Justice Thomas’s concurrence questioning ‘atextual legal rules and frameworks,’ should serve as a clear call for conservative litigators to continue to press for the rule of law. As we often say at America First Legal: read the statute.”
“The Supreme Court unanimously held that discrimination is discrimination, independent of contextual factors that stretch the plain meaning of Title VII,” said Dan Epstein, America First Legal Vice President. “Justice Thomas’s citation to America First Legal’s briefs in his concurrence reflects the unmistakable impact of America First Legal’s ability to provide solid footing for the courts to uphold the rule of law for all Americans.”
Read the opinion here and AFL’s amicus brief here.
Follow us on social media for the latest updates on America First Legal’s fight to protect your constitutional rights!
X, Facebook, Instagram, Truth Social, YouTube
For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
Photo Credit/ Adobe Stock: eurobanks
###
