By Paige Schultz, AAUW Fellow
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to meet the original face of pay equity, Lilly Ledbetter. As many of you know, Ledbetter is the brave woman who has been fighting against wage discrimination for a decade now. After working at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company for 20 years, Ledbetter received an anonymous note exposing the fact that she was being paid 15 to 40 percent less than her male counterparts were. Seeing the obvious injustice in being paid considerably less than her colleagues with comparable experience, she took her case to court. Ledbetter originally won her case, but the Supreme Court stepped in and declared that she should have known she was being discriminated against far before the anonymous tip — within six months of when the first discriminatory pay check was issued. Not one to accept defeat, Ledbetter continues to push Congress to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831) to ensure that no one else will ever have to feel the sting of pay discrimination.
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on pay equity Tuesday morning, which I sat in on along with AAUW fellow Jasoene Bentil. The senators on the committee spoke in support of Ledbetter’s fight for equal pay for equal work, and Ledbetter gave a wonderful account of her experience, both at Goodyear and as a pioneer for pay equity. What was remarkable to me and other witnesses at the hearing was the extent to which pay discrimination still exists for women in the 21st century. I would have believed that barriers had been broken long ago for women in the workplace, but that is clearly not the case. How can discrimination still be happening when women outnumber men today in universities, when we have such strong women leaders as Sen. Hillary Clinton and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
Following the hearing, I had the opportunity to chat with Lilly Ledbetter, not only about her Supreme Court case and her bill in Congress but also about her life and family. Never have I met such an inspiring and strong yet humble woman. Despite being a virtual celebrity in her own right, she was willing to sit down and shoot the breeze about her thoughts on Gov. Sarah Palin, high school football, and riding in a private jet. Ledbetter is no longer fighting for her own case; instead she is fighting for the future of women like you and me, so that we will never have to experience wage discrimination in our professional lives. Please join me in supporting Lilly Ledbetter in her crusade for pay equity.
Paige Schultz is a 2008 fall fellow at AAUW in the Public Policy and Government Relations department. She is currently a junior at California Lutheran University, majoring in political science with a minor in French. Paige is interested in both domestic and international policy, as well as issues surrounding equality and human rights. She is very excited to be in Washington during such an exciting time and hopes to witness the political process firsthand.
Thanks for the touching and informative report and for helping to spread the word that “equity is still an issue.”
The issue of taxing costs against Title VII plaintiffs is one of the issues that NOW protested after the decision in Ledbetter which is also very important to note. Attorney Dawn V. Martin is pursuing this claim within her case against Howard University which can be viewed at DVMartinlaw.com or by contacting Attorney Dawn V. Martin directly at DVmartinlaw@yahoo.com.
We need more women like Ms. Ledbetter and Attorney Dawn V. Martin to take a stand and to fight for equality and for justice!
Now is the time for all women to unite and to fight for equality and justice.