Champion for Equality

photo courtesy of Lilly Ledbetter

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

Champion for Equality

By Carolanne Roberts

Lilly Ledbetter is a modern legend. She is a charming Southern lady with just the right combination of edgy drive and composure. She is the person newly-elected President Barack Obama danced with right after his wife Michelle at his 2009 inaugural ball. And she is a focused and determined woman, a non-stop fighter for what’s right.

Remember the headlines? Lilly Ledbetter from the Possum Trot section of Jacksonville, AL, sent waves all the way to the Supreme Court upon learning she was earning up to 40 percent less than her male counterparts at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in nearby Gadsden, AL. On the technicality of timing – she didn’t start her fight within 180 days of the first unequal paycheck – she lost her Supreme Court case, which meant zero back pay and a hefty hit to her Social Security and retirement benefits. For nearly 20 years, she had worked as the only female area manager at Goodyear. In the end, she left the job. It was her own decision but also the only feasible path.

That could have been it. Cut losses, go home, feel victimized.

But Ledbetter did just the opposite. After 10 years of lobbying for change, she witnessed President Obama, as his first official act in office, sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act into law. Ledbetter herself now travels the country both to tell her story and to encourage women to be heard. This included a memorable stop in Starkville earlier this year, where she addressed a packed Taylor Auditorium as the College of Business’ 2018 Leo W. Seal, Jr. Distinguished Speaker.

To every audience that includes young women – MSU being one – she says, “I won’t stop speaking out. What happened to me should not happen to anyone, especially in the United States. It hurts the individual and the family, it hurts your retirement for the rest of your life and it also has a longer reach – it hurts the community, the state and our nation.”

She tells her listeners, “I’ve testified twice before the House and twice before the Senate, and I went from office to office in Congress sharing my story with Republicans and Democrats. I can tell it in a five-minute nutshell because that’s all the time you get to testify. I tried keep my politics neutral and am grateful that the Ledbetter bill was co-sponsored by both parties. It became a law because of both parties.”

She would never have imagined this kind of tribute, much less a bill carrying her name, in the early days. Ledbetter was an outstanding high school student. Her mother, while encouraging secondary education, discouraged college and sent Lilly into the work force. Eventually, as a District Manager for H&R Block, Ledbetter managed 16 locations in Alabama, hiring and training staff.

When she moved to Goodyear she started as a Supervisor. Her later promotion to Area Manager increased her responsibility but not her paycheck. Still, Ledbetter would have continued there except for what happened next. Two years short of retirement, she received a note in the mail – actually a torn piece of paper from a still-anonymous sender. On it were written the salaries of four managers, Ledbetter and three men. Hers was by far the lowest.

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

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Students filled Taylor Auditorium to hear Ledbetter speak.

photo by Megan Bean

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MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY | COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Life changed in that moment. She filed a gender pay discrimination suit in federal court and won a $3.8 million verdict, only to have it overturned on appeal. Over the next eight years her case made its way to the Supreme Court, which found in Goodyear’s favor. The rest is literally history.

“My daughter bought me a college history textbook, and I am in it!” she proclaims.

Looking back, she explains, “I knew that no matter how much training you had at that point, if you were female you were born the wrong sex. I had no choice but to get out there.”

Little did she know she would attract the attention of such political luminaries as Hillary Clinton, the late Senator Ted Kennedy and a young Senator Obama.

“I’d taken aptitude tests which had determined I’d be productive in public speaking or politics,” she reports, on her efforts to draw attention to the equal pay issue. “And I’ve never been nervous in front of a crowd or in an interview. I’d be on the phone with radio call-ins at 5 a.m., then would go on to maybe do an NPR interview and perhaps one for a paper or a magazine.”

In 2008, she appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, once again speaking for the cause.

“I got so caught up in the crowd reaction, all the hollering and crying,” she recalls. “I could see the tears on women’s faces and hear the men shouting, ‘Yes, yes!’ I had to wait to continue and went on to speak for about six minutes on national TV.”

On Obama’s inauguration day, she rode the train from Philadelphia, PA, to Washington, DC, with the soon-to-be President and Vice President.

The attention and star power helped get the law enacted. But, she reminds her audiences, “I never got a penny. It’s been a long time since I filed in 1998, and I never got a penny.”

What she has gotten, beyond the bill itself, is feedback from women inspired by her diligence.

“For instance, I got in a cab and the driver said, ‘Oh, you’re the equal payday lady’ and told me how he told his wife about me after hearing an interview on NPR. She went to her employer and got $6,000,” Ledbetter shares. “A lady in Mississippi got $125,000 and quit the job on the spot. She’ll graduate from college because she used that money for education. I get calls and letters all the time telling me how much what I’ve done has meant to them.”

DIVIDENDS | FALL 2018

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

One such fan and fervent supporter is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissenting argument in Ledbetter’s case – even reading it from the bench – and keeps in touch with her.

“She has my bill framed in her office,” says Ledbetter. “She’s my number one inspiration, my all-time favorite woman. She has accomplished so much in life but once told me that her first three jobs paid her less [than men] because she had a husband. She understands the cause.”

With a biography in print and a film script floating out there (Ledbetter favors Meryl Streep to portray her), this crusader continues to inspire. Tireless and still determined, Ledbetter persists with her speeches and comments in the press. She is aware that students such as Mississippi State’s, who sat rapt and engaged as she spoke in Taylor Auditorium, will one day carry the torch for her.

“I tell them they need to negotiate their starting salaries because future raises are based on that number,” she says. “I tell them that less pay is a fact. So I give advice to help get equal pay from the start.”

The enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act is a well documented moment in history. Numerous YouTube videos chronicle the triumphant and poised woman walking alongside President Obama into the signing ceremony for that important bill.

Ledbetter’s legacy is summed up in the words of President Obama on that special day: “…this is only the beginning. I know that if we stay focused, as Lilly did, and keep standing for what’s right, as Lilly did, we will close that pay gap and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons.”

Ledbetter took time to meet MSU business students, including members of the University Women in Business chapter, which joined the COB in sponsoring her lecture.

photo by Tyler Ash

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

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