..all women should vote for Obama, for the obvious reasons. Let's
take a close look at the Lilly Ledbetter case that FOUR conservative
Catholic Supreme court justices.. all appointed by Republican
presidents, raped and pillaged and defiled womens rights to equal
protection under the law. The USA Catholic Bishops are complicit...
may you rot in hell you gold hated hypocrites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/washington/30scotus.html

Justices’ Ruling Limits Suits on Pay Disparity

By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: May 30, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 29 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for
many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay,
insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such
cases. The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

Supreme CourtThe decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a
Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at
the same management level, who was paid less than any of her
colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact
late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the
Supreme Court’s majority.

The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the
principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a
formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay
was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the
effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately
apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.

From 2001 to 2006, workers brought nearly 40,000 pay discrimination
cases. Many such cases are likely to be barred by the court’s
interpretation of the requirement in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 that employees make their charge within 180 days “after the
alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.”

Workplace experts said the ruling would have broad ramifications and
would narrow the legal options of many employees.

In an opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the majority rejected
the view of the federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, that each paycheck that reflects the initial
discrimination is itself a discriminatory act that resets the clock on
the 180-day period, under a rule known as “paycheck accrual.”

“Current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged
discrimination,” Justice Alito said in an opinion joined by Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M.
Kennedy and Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas once headed the employment
commission, the chief enforcer of workers’ rights under the statute at
issue in this case, usually referred to simply as Title VII.

Under its longstanding interpretation of the statute, the commission
actively supported the plaintiff, Lilly M. Ledbetter, in the lower
courts. But after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last June,
the Bush administration disavowed the agency’s position and filed a
brief on the side of the employer.

In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common
characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the
secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have
no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than
others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small,
Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a
member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional
environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even
a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s
working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay.”

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer
joined the dissent.

Ms. Ledbetter’s salary was initially the same as that of her male
colleagues. But over time, as she received smaller raises, a
substantial disparity grew. By the time she brought suit in 1998, her
salary fell short by as much as 40 percent; she was making $3,727 a
month, while the lowest-paid man was making $4,286.

A jury in Federal District Court in Birmingham, Ala., awarded her more
than $3 million in back pay and compensatory and punitive damages,
which the trial judge reduced to $360,000. But the United States Court
of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, erased the verdict
entirely, ruling that because Ms. Ledbetter could not show that she
was the victim of intentional discrimination during the 180 days
before she filed her complaint, she had not suffered an “unlawful
employment practice” to which Title VII applied.

Several other federal appeals courts had accepted the employment
commission’s more relaxed view of the 180-day requirement. The
justices accepted Ms. Ledbetter’s appeal, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire
and Rubber Company, No. 05-1074, to resolve the conflict.

Title VII’s prohibition of workplace discrimination applies not just
to pay but also to specific actions like refusal to hire or promote,
denial of a desired transfer and dismissal. Justice Ginsburg argued in
her dissenting opinion that while these “singular discrete acts” are
readily apparent to an employee who can then make a timely complaint,
pay discrimination often presents a more ambiguous picture. She said
the court should treat a pay claim as it treated a claim for a
“hostile work environment” in a 2002 decision, permitting a charge to
be filed “based on the cumulative effect of individual acts.”

In response, Justice Alito dismissed this as a “policy argument” with
“no support in the statute.”

As with an abortion ruling last month, this decision showed the impact
of Justice Alito’s presence on the court. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor,
whom he succeeded, would almost certainly have voted the other way,
bringing the opposite outcome.

The impact of the decision on women may be somewhat limited by the
availability of another federal law against sex discrimination in the
workplace, the Equal Pay Act, which does not contain the 180-day
requirement. Ms. Ledbetter initially included an Equal Pay Act
complaint, but did not pursue it. That law has additional procedural
hurdles and a low damage cap that excludes punitive damages. It does
not cover discrimination on the basis of race or Title VII’s other
protected categories.

In her opinion, Justice Ginsburg invited Congress to overturn the
decision, as it did 15 years ago with a series of Supreme Court
rulings on civil rights. “Once again, the ball is in Congress’s
court,” she said. Within hours, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New
York, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, announced her
intention to submit such a bill.