[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 5, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S7066]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           LEDBETTER DECISION

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to join in correcting the Supreme Court's decision last week in 
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. That decision has 
undermined a core protection of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964, the landmark law against job discrimination based on gender, 
race, national origin, and religion. Title VII has made America a 
stronger, fairer, and better land. It embodies principles at the heart 
of our society--fairness and justice for all.
  Americans believe in fair treatment, equal pay, and an honest chance 
at success in the workplace. These values have made our country a 
beacon of hope and opportunity around the world. The Ledbetter decision 
undermined these bedrock principles by imposing unrealistically short 
time limits for employees seeking redress for wage discrimination.
  In the case before the Supreme Court, a jury had found that Goodyear 
Tire and Rubber Company had discriminated against Lily Ledbetter by 
downgrading her evaluations because she was a woman in a traditionally 
male job. Year after year, the company used these unfair evaluations to 
pay her less than her male coworkers who held the same job. The jury 
was outraged by Goodyear's misconduct and awarded back to Ms. Ledbetter 
to correct this basic injustice and hold the company accountable.
  The Supreme Court ruled against her, holding that she had waited too 
long to file her lawsuit. It ruled that she should have filed her 
lawsuit within a short time after Goodyear first decided to pay her 
less than her male colleagues. Never mind that she didn't know at the 
outset that male workers were paid more. Never mind that the company 
discriminated against her for decades and that the discrimination 
continued with each new paycheck she received.
  Requiring employees to file pay discrimination claims within a short 
time after the employer decides to discriminate makes no sense. Pay 
discrimination is different from other discriminatory actions because 
workers generally don't know what their colleagues earn. It is not a 
case of being told ``you're fired'' or ``you didn't get the job'' when 
workers at least knows they have been denied a job benefit. With pay 
discrimination, the paycheck comes in the mail, and workers usually 
have no idea if they are being paid fairly. Common sense and basic 
fairness require that they should be able to file a complaint within a 
reasonable time after getting a discriminatory paycheck instead of 
having to file the complaint soon after the company first decides to 
shortchange them for discriminatory reasons.
  The Court's decision in the Ledbetter case is not only unfair, it 
sets up a perverse incentive for workers to file lawsuits before they 
have investigated whether pay decisions are actually based on 
discrimination. Under the decision, workers who wait to get all the 
information before filing a complaint of discrimination could be out of 
time. As a result, the decision will create unnecessary litigation as 
workers rush to beat the clock on their equal pay claims.
  The Supreme Court's decision also breaks faith with the Civil Rights 
Act of 1991, which was enacted with overwhelming bipartisan support--a 
vote of 93 to 5 in the Senate and 381 to 38 in the House. The 1991 act 
had corrected this same problem in the context of seniority, 
overturning the Court's decision in a separate case. At the time, there 
was no need to clarify title VII for pay discrimination claims since 
the courts were interpreting title VII correctly. Obviously, Congress 
needs to act again to ensure that the law adequately protects workers 
against pay discrimination.
  It is unacceptable that victims of discrimination are unable to file 
a lawsuit against ongoing discrimination. Yet that is what happened to 
Lily Ledbetter. I hope that all of us, on both sides of the aisle, can 
join in correcting this obvious wrong.
  Unfortunately, in recent years, the Supreme Court also has undermined 
other bipartisan civil rights laws in ways Congress never intended. It 
has limited the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, made it harder to 
protect children who are harassed in our schools, and eliminated 
individuals' right to challenge practices that have a discriminatory 
impact on their access to public services. Congress needs to correct 
these problems as well.
  Let's not allow what happened to Lily Ledbetter to happen to any 
other victims of discrimination. As Justice Ginsburg wrote in her 
powerful dissent, the Court's decision is ``totally at odds with the 
robust protection against employment discrimination Congress intended 
Title VII to secure.'' I urge my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats 
alike, to restore the law as it was before the Ledbetter decision, so 
that victims of ongoing pay discrimination have a reasonable time to 
file their claims. The Lily Ledbetters of our Nation deserve no less.

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