Supreme Court sides with business in wage sex discrimination case

A Supreme Court ruling issued on May 29 will limit the ability of many workers to sue for wage discrimination. The 5-4 decision prohibits an employee from legally challenging a case of wage discrimination more than 180 days after the original discriminatory act occurred. The ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. will virtually eliminate an employee's legal recourse against wage discrimination after the statute of limitations has ended, even if the discrimination is ongoing. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 established the statute of limitations. Civil-rights advocates criticized the ruling, saying it will prevent workers who are discriminated against from recovering all the money they are due from employers. In the dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the decision could harm women, who on average make only 77 cents for every man's dollar. Ginsburg said in court, "In our view, this court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination." Women with a high school education can expect to earn $700,000 less than their male peers over their lifetimes, according Jill Miller, executive director of the Washington advocacy group Women Work!, while women with undergraduate and graduate degrees can expect to accumulate a lifetime deficit of $1.3 million and $2 million respectively with male counterparts. Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, said of the decision, "Not only does the ruling ignore the reality of pay discrimination, it also cripples the law's intent to address it, and undermines the incentive for employers to prevent and correct it." The case was originally brought by Lilly Ledbetter, who worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in Gadsden, AL, for 19 years before realizing that she was paid significantly less than her male counterparts with the same or less experience. Ledbetter learned of her pay disparity when she received in 1998 an anonymous letter detailing salaries at the plant. Within a month she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the government agency charged with resolving workplace discrimination complaints. A trial jury agreed with Ledbetter, awarding her $360,000, but an Atlanta federal appeals court overturned the decision saying she had waited too long to file suit. The Supreme Court agreed. In a biting oral dissent read from the bench, Justice Ginsburg called on Congress to enact legislation to correct the high court's "parsimonious reading" of pay inequity claims. Ginsburg's words spurred Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) -- already outraged by news of the decision -- to do just that. Maloney said May 29 that she will introduce a bill this week to enhance the ability of women and others to gain protection from the courts for discrimination in the workplace. Maloney's bill will provide that every pay period that fails to correct previous discrimination constitutes a new infraction, allowing employees who discover discrimination long after the initial incident to challenge their employer. New York Senator Hillary Clinton -- who in March reintroduced with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the Paycheck Fairness Act to firm up federal enforcement of equal-pay mandates -- also said Congress would respond to the high court's ruling. The Supreme Court's strict ruling has spurred widespread criticism of the time limit provision since salary information is usually kept confidential in workplaces, hindering employees' ability to detect wage bias. The Clinton-DeLauro bill -- which is in committee and has been repeatedly considered since 1999 --addresses this by requiring employers to provide information about salaries to help victims of discrimination identify disparities sooner.