The Supreme Court on Wednesday made it easier for workers to pursue employment discrimination claims over job transfers in ruling on a case involving a St. Louis policewoman who said she was reassigned due to sex discrimination.

Federal civil rights law already prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics such as sex, race, and religion. But the matter before the high court was whether Title VII requires an employee who has been transferred to a new job to prove in court that he or she has experienced a significant disadvantage, such as harm to his or her career or a change in salary or rank.

“Although an employee must show some harm from a forced transfer to prevail in a Title VII suit, she need not show that the injury satisfies a significance test,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan, the author of the decision in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis.

More specifically, the justices held that an employee challenging a job transfer under Title VII must show that the transfer brought about some harm with respect to an identifiable term or condition of employment, but the harm need not be significant. 

Jatonya Muldrow sued the St. Louis Police Department after she was transferred in 2017 out of the intelligence division, a position that allowed her to be deputized under the FBI, work a consistent weekday schedule, and broadly investigate public corruption and human trafficking cases.

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Lower courts rejected her sex discrimination claim on the grounds that the transfer did not cause her a “significant” employment disadvantage. But the Supreme Court rejected that approach on Wednesday, with Kagan saying, “Title VII’s text nowhere establishes that high bar.”

Republican-appointed Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh each issued opinions concurring on the judgment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.