The nine Supreme Court justices were left stunned Wednesday when Ohio’s solicitor general made a remarkable concession in a reverse discrimination case — siding on a key point with the plaintiff, a woman who claims she was passed over at work in favor of gay and lesbian colleagues.

The high court had convened to hear arguments about whether a straight person must show more evidence of discrimination than a gay person to bring forward a civil rights case.

But T. Elliot Gaiser, arguing on behalf of the Buckeye State’s Department of Youth Services, distanced himself from the lower court rulings he had been tasked with defending and agreed with plaintiff Marlean Ames’ attorneys that heterosexual people should not face a higher burden — bewildering the justices.

“My friends on the other side have language they can point to about additional or higher burden that we think … shouldn’t be scrutinized on that level,” Gaiser acknowledged under questioning from conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.

“We’re not defending the exact language there,” he reiterated to conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh about the lower court rulings.

“You mean the exact language?” asked liberal Justice Elena Kagan. “Are you defending something like that language? I mean, it’s a little bit of a peculiar situation, isn’t it? Because this is what the courts said.”

“I don’t know what to make of this,” Kagan added.

Ames sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services in November 2020, claiming she had been wrongfully denied a promotion in favor of a lesbian who was not qualified for the role and then demoted from her position and replaced with a gay man who should not have been eligible to take over her job.

The plaintiff claimed discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with Ames’ lawyers noting that she had received positive performance evaluations from her supervisors — including another gay woman — before unsuccessfully seeking promotion in the spring of 2019.

Two lower courts, including the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, granted the Ohio Department of Youth Services summary judgment and dismissed Ames’ lawsuit — finding that as a straight woman who is part of a “majority group,” she had to show “background circumstances” to prove that the defendant is an “unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”

“I think the idea that you hold people to different standards because of their protected characteristics is wrong,” Gaiser admitted during his exchange with Kagan.

Instead, the Ohio solicitor general attempted to argue that the “evidence here showed … that no one knew” Ames’ sexual orientation when the questionable hiring decisions were made.

“Now you’re asking us to opine on various other aspects,” Kagan said, “that are, you know, really not intertwined at all with that question.”

“You say that’s not met because the relevant decision-makers didn’t know the plaintiff’s sexual orientation,” added Justice Neil Gorsuch to Gaiser. “Interesting argument. Not presented here [by the defendant].”

Some of the justices openly mused about sending the case back to the lower courts to consider the new argument raised by Gaiser.

“We’re in radical agreement today,” Gorsuch assessed. “Perhaps the [lower] court should take a look at that before we do. What would be wrong with that?”

Gaiser then suggested that the justices could still affirm the lower court rulings even if they took issue with the rationale.

Xiao Wang, an attorney for Ames, later returned to the stand and briefly rebutted Gaiser by pointing out that “all Ms. Ames is asking for is equal justice under law.

“Not more justice, but certainly not less,” he said.

A ruling in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services is expected by the end of June.