On Thursday, June 5, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously vacated a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which held that plaintiffs claiming anti-heterosexual workplace discrimination must provide extra evidence related to “background circumstances,” because it improperly imposed higher standards on majority-group plaintiffs alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

In Ames v. State of Ohio Department of Youth Services, a former Ohio Department of Youth Services employee alleged that she was denied a promotion in favor of a lesbian woman before being demoted and replaced by a gay man, who were both allegedly less qualified than she was. The employee then brought claims under Title VII. When the State of Ohio Department of Youth Services moved for summary judgment, the U.S. District Court for Southern District of Ohio dismissed these claims on the grounds that the employee did not present sufficient evidence to show “‘background circumstances support[ing] the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority’ to establish the first prong of the prima facie case.”

In affirming the trial court’s decision, the Sixth Circuit upheld the “background circumstances” rule finding that the employee must meet this standard “in addition to the usual ones for establishing a prima facie case” because she is part of a majority demographic, a heterosexual.

After granting certiorari, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in February. Ohio argued that the “background circumstances” rule was not a higher standard for majority group plaintiffs to present their prima facie case. The employee – alongside the United States, which supported the employee as an amicus – argued that the “background circumstances” rule went against the framework outlined in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, which requires plaintiffs to show, amongst other things, that they are members of a protected group and their employer treated them differently than people not in the same group.

The Supreme Court outright rejected the “background circumstances” rule because Title VII’s disparate treatment provision “draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs [or] minority-group plaintiffs.” The justices found that the “background circumstances” rule “requires plaintiffs who are members of a majority group to bear an additional [prima facie]burden . . . ,” and any argument that the “background circumstances” rule is not a higher standard is “directly at odds with the Court of Appeals’ description of the ‘background circumstances’ rule and its application . . . in this case.”

The justices remanded the matter to the U.S. District Court for Southern District of Ohio so it can assess the merits of this employee’s claims based on their clarification of the employee’s prima facie burden for showing disparate treatment under Title VII.

The Supreme Court’s ruling resolves a circuit split regarding the evidentiary burden required for majority-group plaintiffs in Title VII cases. Previously, the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits applied the “background circumstances” requirement, while the Third and Eleventh Circuits rejected it.

This ruling could increase the litigation risk for employers with employees in the impacted jurisdictions (Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, and D.C.).

This decision comes at a time when DEI initiatives have already been subjected to scrutiny by the Trump Administration. In light of this decision and that recent scrutiny, employers should review their anti-discrimination policies and diversity programs to ensure that they do not treat employees differently on account of their membership in a protected class, whether in actuality or perception.