Grace and Grit

by Lilly Ledbetter

  Another thing I’ve never understood about the ruling is how in the world Justice Thomas voted against me. Growing up in the South, he, too, must have experienced discrimination. For goodness sakes, he grew up in a county poor like mine. And I knew from what I’d seen at Goodyear that women were treated with kid gloves compared to the way some people acted when it came to working with African Americans. (Whenever I contemplate this, I remember how, when I was a child, Papa would cross the street whenever he saw a black person and how I’d try to catch the eye of the person to smile in sympathy. The rural South wasn’t an easy place to live for African Americans, to say the least.)

  What I did understand when Justice Ginsburg voiced her dissent as the only female voice on the Court is that the importance of women being appointed to the Court cannot be underestimated. My case shows that those individuals who are appointed to the Supreme Court really make a difference. If one more person like Justice Ginsburg or Justice Stevens had been on the Court—one more person who understood what it’s like for ordinary people living in the real world—then my case would have turned out differently. Most people I’ve talked to simply can’t believe what happened to me and want to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again. They don’t care if the justices are Democrats or Republicans, or which president appointed them, or which senators voted for them. They want justices who understand that the law must serve regular hardworking folks who are just trying to do right and make a better life for their families. And when the law isn’t clear, justices need to use some common sense and remember that the people who write laws are usually trying to make a law that’s fair and sensible. This isn’t a game. Real people’s lives are at stake.

  I won’t lie; I was pretty devastated by the Court’s decision. The ruling had severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to vindicate their rights under Title VII.

  In one fell swoop, I lost my case and became the poster child for unequal pay for equal work. And the real clincher is, as I’ve said before, Goodyear continues to treat me like a second-class citizen because my pension and Social Security are based on the amount I earned—Goodyear gets to keep my extra pension as a reward for breaking the law.

  Instead of taking what happened quietly, swept up by the current of outrage from numerous organizations such as the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the AFL-CIO, the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA), and the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), to name only a few, I decided to fight back. For the sake of my granddaughter and future generations of women and their families, I refused to take this unjust ruling lying down. I owed that much not just to myself but to all of America’s women and girls, who deserved a fighting chance.

  Ready to stand with me every step of the way were passionate women: Jocelyn Samuels, an early advocate for Title IX, which leveled the playing field for girls and women in sports; Marcia Greenberger, founder and copresident of the National Women’s Law Center; and Lisa Maatz, from the American Association of University Women. These women showed me that Justice Ginsburg, her dissenting colleagues, and I weren’t the only ones who thought the ruling was crazy. As these women, now my lifelong friends, marched me before their members, I became filled with a sense of mission. Pay equity wasn’t my personal problem; it wasn’t a southern problem or even a national issue. Pay inequity was an international epidemic that needed to be remedied. What was required now was a simple legislative fix to restore the law to how it was applied by the EEOC and the lower courts prior to that crazy Supreme Court ruling.

  INSPIRED BY Justice Ginsburg’s dissent and dressed in the black Talbot jacket and skirt Vickie bought me, I spent the next two years traversing the halls of Congress telling my story. I lived to fulfill a greater purpose. Though I may have lost the case—and my $3.8 million verdict—I was made a figurehead of pay inequality from that day forward. The ruling, and Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, put me at the helm of a civil rights issue larger than myself. Perhaps naïvely, I hoped that Congress would recognize the urgent importance of women’s equality in the workplace and pass a bill to prevent future cases like mine.

  This bill would reverse the Supreme Court’s decision, helping to ensure that individuals subjected to unlawful pay discrimination had an effective recourse to assert their rights under the federal antidiscrimination laws. The bill would reinstate prior law and adopt the paycheck-accrual rule, making each discriminatory paycheck, rather than the original decision to discriminate, the starting point for a new claim-filing period. The paycheck-accrual rule provides sufficient time for employees to evaluate and confirm that they have been subject to discrimination.

  Ultimately, what would become the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act would protect workers from workplace discrimination as Congress intended.

  The House Democrats immediately heeded Justice Ginsburg’s clarion call for Congress to amend the law. Jon and I flew to Washington together to meet with House Education and Workforce Committee chairman George Miller, a tall, white-haired man from California, to discuss the proposed bill, HR 11. After we returned to Alabama, Representative Miller called Jon to ask about naming the bill after me. When Jon told me this, I said, “Well, that would be fine by me.”

  “It’s a great honor,” he remarked.

  “It certainly is,” I said, amazed at this turn of events. “And now Goodyear will never forget me.”

  Only a month after the Supreme Court verdict, in June 2007, House majority leader Steny Hoyer and Representative Miller announced that a bill would be passed to prevent future court rulings in line with mine. Republicans including Howard “Buck” McKeon, a ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, opposed the bill, contending that it made companies vulnerable to disgruntled employees seeking damages years later when the company couldn’t offer a meaningful defense.

  Starting that humid summer after the Supreme Court verdict in May, I spent at least two weeks out of each month in Washington, depending on Charles’s doctor appointments, treatment, and hospital stays. A typical day started at 5:00 A.M. with a call-in talk-radio show, followed by meetings with congressional staff members on the Hill, press conferences, and more media interviews.

  During one of my very first press conferences, I tripped over the electrical cords snaking like overgrown tree roots around my feet when I was walking to the podium, almost causing the entire sea of microphones to tumble down. I learned to step with care when I approached any podium. At first, I didn’t know who this woman was standing inside the congressional building with a field of microphones, reporters, and cameras thrust before her. Sometimes, after telling my story so many times in the same day, I had fitful nights, dreaming that I still worked at Goodyear.

  More often than not, I met with staffers who couldn’t or wouldn’t commit to supporting Senate Bill 1843. Only a few times did I actually meet with a member of Congress. During my meeting with Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski’s young aide, she jumped up. “I’ll be right back,” the aide said. Next thing I knew, there was Senator Murkowski standing before me ready to listen. I started over. At the end of my story, she walked to the door, turned, and said, “You have a compelling story, but I can’t support you.” Then she left.

  I was crushed. As we gathered ourselves for our next meeting, she came right back and asked if I would like to have a photograph taken. Deep inside I was too demoralized for a photo opportunity, but I smiled for the pictures anyway, hoping she would change her mind.

  On our way to the next meeting, I told myself, Well, we didn’t get that one, but maybe the next one will be different.

  PASSING A bill in Congress can be tricky, to put it mildly. In order for a bill to be passed, a member of Congress must submit it for consideration. In the House, a copy of the bill is literally dropped into a box called “the hopper.” In the Senate, a member recognized by the presiding officer may introduce a bi
ll. Once a bill is introduced, it is assigned to a committee for study—the committees in the Senate and the House do basically the same thing. The bill is then assigned to a subcommittee and scheduled for hearings, at which time witnesses may be called to testify as to why a bill is needed. Once the hearings are held, the committee and subcommittee members vote on whether the bill should proceed to the full House or Senate, where it is placed on the calendar for action. The House and Senate then debate the bill and vote on whether to pass or reject it. Most bills die in committee.

  Twice that June, just weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling was delivered, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee. I’d watched the Watergate hearings on TV and had been especially riveted to the Anita Hill hearings many years later. Now here I was sitting at a long wooden table, the seats behind me packed with people, the table cluttered with papers and water bottles while the thin microphone arched in front of me. I faced questions from the most powerful decision makers in our country, photographers kneeling in front of their table, their cameras clicking. I occupied a place I could have never imagined being in. I have to say, these hearings felt like an out-of-body experience, but all I had to do was think of how unfair the ruling was and my indignation fueled the words that flowed from me.

  During the hearing before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the Committee on the Judiciary, Neal Mollen, the lawyer representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accused me of waiting to retire before suing. He claimed that I’d known all along about my lower salary. That set me off like a firecracker.

  I interrupted his lies, shaking my finger at him, telling him what really happened. Did he really believe that I would choose to work for almost twenty years knowing I was being discriminated against in pay and then wait to sue? What kind of sense did that make?

  After this testimony, Mr. Mollen assured me that he never wanted to go up against me again.

  The next month the Ledbetter Act passed the House.

  Sponsored by Education and Workforce Committee chairman George Miller from California and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, the bill, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by reinstating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing a pay-discrimination lawsuit resets with each new discriminatory paycheck, squeaked by in a close vote of 225–199 on the last day of July.

  Twice I testified before the Senate as well. The first time was in January 2008, before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

  A few months later, sponsored by Senators Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts and Patrick Leahy from Vermont, the bill was voted on during the 110th Senate in April 2008. The Democrats had no idea what was going to happen, especially since we only had fifty-seven votes and sixty were required, and they waited to convene until 5:00 P.M. so presidential candidates Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama could return from the campaign trail. Senator John McCain chose not to return, not that his vote would have made a difference. In reference to the bill, he’d already made the ridiculous comment to reporters that what women really needed was more education and training. He had the same mindset as most Republicans: that this bill was a trial lawyer’s dream come true and would ignite a firestorm of frivolous lawsuits.

  During this vote, I watched from the Senate gallery as Senate majority leader Harry Reid purposefully voted against the bill. That way, the bill could be reopened for consideration if it lacked enough votes to pass. After the vote, I waited outside the Senate door, thanking the senators who voted for it and asking those who opposed it why they did. I’d already unsuccessfully cornered Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama when I ran into him at the airport and asked him to support the bill. If I thought calling people to testify against Goodyear was tough, trying to get support from representatives from my own state was even tougher. The only one who supported the bill was Congressman Artur Davis.

  That day I also had the privilege of meeting Hillary Clinton. When she asked me to endorse her, I hated to say no, but I wanted to stay neutral for the sake of passing the bill. I met Senator Obama for the very first time as well, and a photograph of us together ran in the Washington Post the next day.

  The next time I testified in the Senate was in the early fall in the midst of election fervor. Emboldened by the desire for change I’d heard from so many across the country, I stood before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary in the Senate Chambers as they discussed the merits of equal pay for equal work in their debates leading up to a vote on the bill.

  Navigating the ins and outs of politics on the Hill, I’d learned about the unpredictable and uncontrollable process of trying to get a bill passed. With the “Great Recession” hitting the country, banks failing, the housing market plummeting, and the financial markets teetering, focusing on pay equity in a world that had turned upside down was even more challenging. Not to mention the trade-offs representatives felt compelled to make when, say, considering the practical needs of their constituents recently ravaged by hurricanes. The uncertainty of the outcome and the chaotic nature of the passage of a bill unfolding reminded me of the time I ran around, slipping and sliding in the pouring rain and slick mud, trying to capture frightened chickens when a flooded building collapsed at Tyson.

  Nevertheless, this was one of the most exciting times of my life as I was affirmed by thousands of people. It was a time of social empowerment for me, yet in my personal life I felt helpless. Charles’s cancer was eating away at him as surely as the vinegar dissolving the shell of an egg in the science experiment my grandson showed me. At first after both Charles and I had retired (despite the fact that we were dealing with the stress of the trial), we were so happy together. But then his cancer blindsided all of us.

  While I traveled back and forth to and from Washington, I did my best to care for Charles as he suffered through his painful ordeal. As the momentum of my new public role carried me forward, I was also pulled home by my heartache over Charles’s cancer, unable to face the fact that he might really be dying. I might as well have tried to look straight into the sun without blinking. As it was, my heart already felt scorched.

  CHAPTER 10

  Becoming the Grandmother of Equal Pay

  The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

  —SENATOR TED KENNEDY

  BEFORE I started giving speeches, my grandson assured me that if I didn’t know what to say, my Alabama accent would at least be entertaining enough to keep most people listening. The first time I spoke before a large audience, I was being honored, along with Nancy Pelosi, by the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. After I finished speaking to the audience of twelve hundred people, they gave me a standing ovation. In that moment, I remembered my despair during the dark nights the year before the trial. I felt giddy and even a little dizzy from the power of the reversal. Before long, I became pretty comfortable speaking to groups.

  Nothing compared to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. The Obama campaign had contacted the National Women’s Law Center to ask me to deliver a five-minute speech during prime time on Tuesday evening. My heart almost stopped just thinking about it. Throughout the election campaign, in an effort to seek bipartisan support for the bill, I’d shied away from endorsing a candidate. But Marcia Greenberger explained how Ronald Reagan Jr. had spoken at the Democratic National Convention in support of John Kerry, who was an advocate for stem-cell research like the Reagans—and he did so without endorsing Kerry. Likewise, I could also speak without endorsing anyone. I agreed, knowing I had an incredible opportunity to raise awareness about the issue of fair pay.

  Security at the stadium was tight, and I was whisked through several checkpoints before I spoke. Waiting, I almost gnawed my bottom lip in two, I was so worried about making a mistake. As I told my story to eighty-four thousand people in the stadium and millions more through the broadcast, I felt my nervousness replaced by the crowd’s ex
traordinary energy. Above me, gigantic screens flashed images from the stage and stadium; below me women cried. Tears streaming down their faces, men yelled, “Yes, we can!” as they waved their signs, while the crowd chanted my name. I could feel the power of thousands of voices, thousands of individuals aspiring to a greater good, rising through the bottom of my feet and coursing through my body like an electrical current. Charged by the intensity of that moment, I felt part of something far more significant than myself.

  When I walked off that stage, a reporter asked me when I’d endorsed Obama. I intuitively said, “Right now.”

  I knew in that moment that I had to wake up America to the injustice happening to American families, and the best path for doing so was to join Barack Obama’s campaign.

  A FEW months later I flew into Philadelphia to campaign for Obama in the last push before election night. From morning until evening I was driven across the state, stopping to speak at colleges, campaign headquarters, and union halls. At the Steelworkers Union headquarters, a man in the audience asked me if what I was doing was worthwhile. Wasn’t I just preaching to the choir when I spoke before my fellow Democrats? “Yes, sir,” I answered him. “I’d be in Alabama, but it’s a die-hard Republican state. If I had any possibility of changing anybody’s mind, I’d be there. They’re some stubborn folks, and I know better than to waste my breath.”

  IN OCTOBER I met Michelle Obama for the first time as I joined her and Jill Biden in Virginia. I had never experienced anything like Ms. Obama’s sincerity and compassion. And after we all spoke at a college in Virginia and she and Dr. Biden told me to follow them as they stepped offstage to greet the crowd, I was, for a moment, bewildered. I didn’t belong in the same category as these two accomplished women I’d come to admire. Every once in a while during an event or speech, I had these moments, overcome by how surreal my life had become. But there I was as people hugged my neck and snapped a picture of us on their cell phones.