Legal Aspects of Diversity

1. The Time article dated January 2009 relays information regarding a recent diversity issue. In July 1998, Lilly Ledbetter filed suit for sex discrimination against her employer Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. under Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964. Ledbetter claimed that she "suffered sexual harassment and day-to-day discrimination" (Pickert, para. 4). In the Supreme Court Syllabus of the case, Ledbetter alleged that her supervisors deliberately gave her poor performance evaluations because she was female. Therefore, "her pay had not increased as much as it would have if she had been evaluated fairly" (Reporter, p. 1).

According to Richard Schaefer (2011), "Women are an oppressed group even though they form the numerical majority" and they "experience unequal treatment" (p. 1). Additionally, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits an employee from being subjected to adverse employment action based on sex. Furthermore, the "Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) protects men and women who perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sex-based wage discrimination" (Legal Issues, para. 7).

The District Court allowed her case to go to trial and the jury found in favor of Ledbetter awarding her back pay and damages. However, Goodyear appealed the case contending the time limit for the claim was over 180 days. The Civil Rights Act at the time of Ledbetter's case has a 180-day stipulation in filing a claim from the original pay-setting decision. Because there was no pay discrimination found after September 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Goodyear.

Based on this case, in January 2009, President Obama signed an amendment to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The amendment, called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, allows workers or employees to sue up to 180 days after receiving any discriminatory paycheck, not 180 days from the initial or original, pay-setting decision. It also reiterates the limit of back pay to two years before an employee files a claim.

2. Diversity in the workplace is not in place to ensure quotas in the number of minorities hired, but to ensure equal and fair treatment. This fair treatment can refer to pay, performance evaluations, and type of work expected of an employee. If a company discriminates in one area, they are more than likely discriminating in another area. In the Ledbetter case, there appear to be numerous infractions of unfair treatment based on sex. Perhaps if Ledbetter had filed claims of sexual harassment as they occurred, she may have won the case instead of dismissal of the case for being untimely. For example, she may have filed a claim against the supervisor she alleged had "once asked her for sexual favors in return for good job performance evaluations" (Picket, para. 4). Also, she may have filed after each performance appraisal. Salaries are considered

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