When a Hillsdale student considers the biggest thing he could possibly do after college, arguing before the United States Supreme Court is probably one of those things, especially if he comes from the west side of Cleveland, said Elliot Gaiser ’12, solicitor general of Ohio.
Gaiser, who was in the journalism program and was the opinions editor of The Collegian during his time at Hillsdale, argued a discrimination case before the Supreme Court Feb. 26.
He defended the Ohio Department of Youth Services against a woman named Marlean A. Ames, who brought a claim under Title VII, a federal employment statute, that the department discriminated against her for being heterosexual after she lost two positions to homosexual workers.
Gaiser argued Ohio didn’t violate Title VII. He said the trial court and the court of appeals agreed with Ohio’s position, so now the Supreme Court must make a decision.
“It’s an exhilarating thing to stand in front of the incredible jurists that make up our Supreme Court and present arguments on behalf of a client like your state,” Gaiser said.
You want to be as prepared as you can be when you know you will have to stand in front of the highest court in the U.S. and defend your position at the end of your work on a case, he said.
“Everything the Supreme Court reviews is going to be a headline at some point, and because the underlying facts of this case drew media attention, I knew there would be scrutiny,” Gaiser said.
College President Larry Arnn said Gaiser is a fine man who is diligent, honest, intelligent, and successful in everything he tries.
“I have been proud to watch his growth,” Arnn said. “He once asked me if the students thought he was over-serious. I told him probably — he was very serious. I also told him not to worry about it. It was not a bad problem, if it existed, and anyway he would grow out of it.”
According to Gaiser, Title VII makes it an unlawful employment practice to fail to hire, fail to promote, or to otherwise take any adverse employment action against a prospective employee or employee because of that individual employee’s race, sex, national origin, or religion.
“In this particular case, the Ohio Department of Youth Services moved for judgment on the pleadings in a number of her claims and to dismiss some of her other claims,” Gaiser said. “Many of her claims were dismissed by the trial court, but not all of her claims, specifically her claims about sexual orientation.”
Gaiser was defending his client who prevailed below in the court of appeals, he said.
“The U.S. Supreme Court reviews judgments, and we were arguing that the judgment was correct, that it flowed from the evidence in this case underneath the standards set by the precedents of the Supreme Court,” he said.
The other side tried to frame the case, and the media tried to frame the case, as about whether there should be different standards for different kinds of employees and litigants, Gaiser said.
“All along, we said we agreed that Title VII doesn’t treat some people better than other people. It treats everybody the same,” he said.
Gaiser said he has argued many cases in his career, but this was his first time arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court, though he’d been at the court before in a different role.
“This was my first time back at the court as an advocate as opposed to as staff for one of the justices who rules on these cases,” he said.
Gaiser clerked for Associate Justice Samuel Alito and met each of the U.S. Supreme Court justices during the 2021-22 term.
“I didn’t want to let any of them down by not having a good answer for their questions,” Gaiser said.
Professor of Rhetoric and Public Address and Director of Forensics Kirstin Kiledal said Gaiser was one of her advisees and speech studies majors during his time at Hillsdale.
“He had all the markers that he was going to do something good in the world, because not only did he have the potential, but he had the drive — he himself wanted that,” Kiledal said.
Kiledal said there are many people whom she would be surprised about where they are now after college, but not Gaiser.
“He always had an interest in politics and in, at some level, serving people, whether it was in his state or his country,” Kiledal said.
Kiledal said Gaiser was an excellent student, he was involved in many things on campus — including Student Federation and producing his own podcast before they were popular — and he excelled in the Edward Everett Oratory Contest.
“He was a four-time finalist in the Everett Oratory competition and won twice, which then led to Mr. [Don] Tocco also taking Elliot a bit under his wing as well,” Kiledal said.
Gaiser said a Hillsdale education is the best training for the practice of law that he is aware of.
According to Gaiser, he would be nowhere close to the lawyer he is now had he not had the rigorous liberal arts education in Western traditions of philosophy and rhetoric that he received at Hillsdale College.
“I would love to just tell students that they should be able to have ambitions to do great things in the service of great things, and do great things for the higher things,” Gaiser said.
