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Layman's breakdown:
The facts of the case.
Ames had a job. Her performance reviews were generally positive. Her manager was gay, and Ames is straight.
She applied for a promotion. She didn't get it. Another person was hired for the promotion, who was gay.
Ames was demoted to a significantly lower paying job, and someone else was hired for her previous role. That other person was also gay.
She sued for discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The established precedence for testing discrimination has three steps. The first step is establishing that something fishy happened that may have been discriminatory. This is ostensibly a low bar to entry to a lawsuit. You just have to demonstrate something happened. Like, you can't sue for "they looked at me funny" or "they didn't like me because I'm [fill in protected class]." You don't have to prove that you were the victim of discrimination at this level, you just have to demonstrate that there is something that requires review.
This is called the McDonnell Douglas burden shifting framework, and the next step is that the business has to prove there was a legitimate business reason for the something that happened. You can see why the first step is a low bar but also an important step. If the case is "they looked at me funny," how is the business supposed to defend against that? "You had a weird hat on," or simply, "that's just my face." If there's an obvious business explanation, then the third step is it goes back to the complainant to demonstrate that the business reason is discrimination or bullshit.
It's a reasonable framework that ensures all discrimination allegations are handled consistently and methodically. The court doesn't jump into whether weird stares are discriminatory or not until after they have determined that there's something to evaluate and the business has had a chance to justify it.
An example could be a waiter suing Hooters for gender discrimination because they didn't hire him. The first step is that the restaurant did not hire him and hired someone else, a woman. The next step is the restaurant justifying the business decision, that the restaurant's business model is built on women's boobies, so they exclusively hire waitresses. The third step is the waiter trying to prove that the business decision is discriminatory, and that a man could have boobies as profitable as a woman.
So Ames presented her case, but the lower appellate court required that Ames additionally demonstrate that her employer had a history or pattern of discrimination against straight people. The thought process was that "reverse" discrimination against straight people is relatively rare, so to pass the first step, Ames needed to meet an additional burden. Notice how many times I said "additional"? That's not how laws are supposed to work. The framework never got to the second step in the process because the court applied a different standard to the complaint. The court had a legal reasoning for this, but anyone following the case knew that it was a decision that would not survive on appeal.
The SCOTUS sent it back down to the lower court to apply the standard framework, which Ames will still probably lose. It's really hard to demonstrate discrimination, especially when the people making the decisions were also straight. Mediocre performance reviews are not a strong case that you deserve a promotion, and she accepted the demotion rather than sue for constructive dismissal. It's hard to say that she will win her case, but it's a bit alarming how well-funded her legal team seems to be.
Even more alarming is the concurrent opinion by Thomas and cosigned by Gorsuch essentially admitting that they don't like the McDonnell Douglas framework and would overturn the precedent if that was the question before the court. Maybe it isn't a perfect framework, but the oligarchs that own the conservative justices clearly have a target in mind, and are basically colluding with the complainant to come back with a different argument that would allow conservatives to eliminate some additional human rights.
So those are the objective facts of the case. Anything more would be speculation.
A case went to and won in the Supreme Court despite this not even being met. The wedding website designer that had never made a website but sued to not have to be forced to make a gay wedding website. Based on the potential future scene that had never occurred.
Don't get me started on illegitimate SCOTUS rulings.
I appreciate the write-up on this, it's interesting. My whole issue with it is, it's not a good look when you're eliminating DEI and any other workplace protections for minorities and then vote in favor of the person because she's white. There are so many protections that are going away and makes most of the SCOTUS look like the fascists in the white house right now. I really had no idea how fucking racist the wealthy are. Peter Thiel is gay, he doesn't see that he's not in the club when the shit hits the fan? Clarence Thomas is the symbol for the corruption in the SCOTUS when there are 4 others that are equally as corrupt or worse. If he wasn't SCOTUS and in their pocket, he would be treated like all other black people who are republican. If he's not useful, discard them.
I'm with you, and I do expect that my great grandchildren will still be fighting to undo the damage done by the current illegitimate court.
But in this case, they didn't find in her favor because she's white, or straight, or funded by conservative "interest groups." The lower court explicitly described the additional burden she needed to prove beyond the standard. The rulings make some compelling arguments, but it's not enough to justify "separate but equal" standards of legal precedence.