issue: Women-Friendly Workplace

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.: One Year Later and NOT a Happy Anniversary, Congressional Solution Still Not in Sight

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How long do working women have to wait? And how many will be short-changed before Congress restores their ability to seek redress for pay discrimination?

It has been one year since the U.S. Supreme Court upended years of court precedent and effectively gutted a civil rights statute that gave victims of paycheck discrimination the right to sue their employers. In the decision, a 5-4 majority of the Court said that Lilly Ledbetter should have made her claim within 180 days of the company’s first offense — her first discriminatory paycheck — nearly 20 years earlier.

Harassment Complaint Against Federal Judge Calls for Congressional Inquiry

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On October 31, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) formally requested that the House Judiciary Committee open an investigative file on U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, of Galveston, Texas, regarding sexual harassment complaints. Kent was reprimanded by and suspended from the bench by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on September 28, 2007, but that suspension ends on January 1, 2008.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) applauds Congresswoman Jackson Lee for taking this crucial step, noting as a member of the Judiciary Committee that it is their “obligation as members of the U.S. Congress to do all in our power to prevent all forms of sexual harassment, especially in the judicial arena, which is entrusted to administer these very laws which have allegedly been violated and over which we have oversight.”

NOW Cheers Clinton Commitment to Tackle “Maternal Profiling”

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Common assumptions about mothers’ and caregivers’ responsibilities frequently affect their salary, raises, and job opportunities, and we are gratified that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made this and other work/life balance issues a central part of her campaign platform.