Washington, DC – The American Association of University Women congratulates the House of Representatives on passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831), beginning the process of righting the wrong done by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in May.
"This bill simply restores the law to how it was applied by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts prior to the Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear," said Lisa Maatz, AAUW director of public policy and government relations. "In passing this bill, the House has demonstrated its resolve to reduce pay discrimination and clarified its intent within the current statute – we encourage the Senate to quickly pass similar legislation."
The Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to sue under Title VII. In this case, Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at an Alabama Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company plant, sued her employer for paying her less than its male supervisors. Goodyear argued that Ledbetter filed her complaint too late and, by the narrowest of margins, the Supreme Court agreed. The Ledbetter decision also reversed the EEOC’s longstanding position that repeated payments of discriminatory paychecks can be challenged as long as one discriminatory payment occurred within the charge filing period.
"The Court’s decision ignores the realities of today’s workplace, because employees generally don’t know enough about what co-workers earn or how pay decisions are made to file a complaint precisely when a discriminatory pay decision is made," said Maatz. "By enacting the legislative fix called for by Justice Ginsberg in her dissenting opinion, the House has made it clear that civil rights must have enforceable remedies, and that penalties should be adequate to deter discriminatory conduct. AAUW is pleased that the House addressed this conceptually wrongheaded decision."
The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amends Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify that a pay discrimination claim accrues when a pay decision is made, when an employee is subject to that decision, or at any time they are injured by it such as a discriminatory paycheck.
AAUW believes now is the time to strengthen all pay discrimination laws, and so also urges Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338/S. 766), which would take meaningful steps to strengthen the Equal Pay Act, another critical tool in the fight for fair pay.
For more information or to schedule an interview with AAUW Director of Public Policy and Government Relations Lisa Maatz, please contact Ashley Carr, AAUW Director of Communications at 202/785-7745 or carra@aauw.org.
