At long last, America is moving toward fairness in hiring, promotions, and college admissions.
The latest good news: In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court said everyone deserves the same protection from discrimination, including straight white women and men.
In the decades since Martin Luther King Jr. called on us to judge people by the “content of their character,” this country has moved in the opposite direction. Racial preferences, Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs and quotas favoring women, LGBTQ+ and other groups replaced judging each individual.
The average white guy or woman has been getting the shaft in corporate hiring, college admissions or even becoming a government supplier.
But now that is changing. Recent events, including the Trump administration’s bold disavowal of DEI and discriminatory practices in hiring and promotion, and the high court ruling in Ames v. Ohio on Thursday, suggest America is not doomed to be a hopelessly divided caste society where group identity trumps an individual’s essence.
We are starting to move in the right direction, where each individual can succeed on the merits. Marlean Ames’ win on Thursday is another step forward.
Ames, a 61-year-old white heterosexual woman, sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services, where she’d worked for 16 years.
Despite getting favorable reviews and promotions, in 2020 she was turned down for a higher position that went to a lesbian, and then demoted, to be replaced by another gay man. She alleged discrimination based on her heterosexuality.
Lower federal courts rejected Ames’ claim , saying because she is part of a majority group — heterosexual white women — she had a higher burden of proof than a minority would have.
But the justices ruled that having different standards for majority and minority groups violates Title VII, the portion of the landmark Civil Rights Act that outlawed workplace discrimination.
Ames still has to prove her case in the lower courts, but she will be treated the same as any minority group member alleging discrimination, not facing what Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson termed a “heightened standard” of evidence.
The Supremes’ ruling will reverberate in federal courts across America. In the Sixth Circuit and four other circuits, that double standard prevailed until now. Kudos to the top court for rejecting that two-tiered system of justice.
“Reverse” discrimination is as bad as any other kind. Proving it shouldn’t be harder.
Amen.
We are in a new era that began with the Supreme Court’s 2023 rulings striking down reverse discrimination at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
After George Floyd’s death in 2020, many companies launched ambitious efforts to diversify their workforces. Though well-intentioned, they caused resentment and violated the nation’s bedrock principle of color-blind equality.
The justices’ ruling against Harvard sent a signal to the corporate world to change course.
Credit also goes to politicians — including Donald J. Trump — consumers and even corporate shareholders who challenged DEI.
Major companies began rolling back their DEI programs. Lowe’s was one of the first. Now the company says it wants to be a “unifier.”
Citigroup reports it has dropped “diversity, equity and inclusion” from the title of its talent management team.
Home Depot, Google, Goldman Sachs and many others have publicly scrapped hiring goals based on race, ethnicity, sex or gender.
It’s a big change from the recent past, when a young white man graduating from college had to worry that internships and training programs at the big financial institutions and other corporate giants wouldn’t consider him because of his race and gender.
But it’s good news for everyone, not just him. The six decades of concocted preferences since Martin Luther King’s famous “content of their character” speech and the harm these preferences caused should teach us that treating people differently based on the group they belong to is a mistake.
Discrimination — no matter the group and however well-intentioned — inflicts new injustices.
As Ames said, “We’re trying to make this a level playing field for everyone. Not just a white woman in Ohio.”
It’s also reassuring that the unanimous opinion in Ames was crafted by Justice Jackson, the most liberal member of the court and herself often considered a DEI pick.
It’s another sign that America may be coming together on the need to end such distinctions altogether, whether invidious or virtuous in intent.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
