Cuninggim Lecture:

Posted by on Monday, March 12, 2012 in Archives, News.

Equal pay activist Lilly Ledbetter to deliver Cuninggim Lecture on Women in Culture and Society Tuesday, Mar. 13 at Vanderbilt University

Longtime Alabama Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company employee Lilly Ledbetter did not set out to be an activist, but her fight for equal pay went all the way to the Supreme Court and in 2009 led to President Barack Obama-€™s signing The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -€“ it was the first bill he signed into law. Ledbetter brings her story to Vanderbilt University, Tuesday, Mar. 13.

Ledbetter will give a talk, -€œGrace and Grit: My Experience with Equal Pay for Equal Work,-€ as the 2012 Cuninggim Lecture on Women in Culture and Society. The event is free and open to the public, and will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Student Life Center-€™s Board of Trust Room.

Nineteen years after she began employment with Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Ledbetter discovered that she was earning far less than her male counterparts for the same work. After eight years of appeals, her case was heard in the Supreme Court, where in a 5-€“4 vote she lost on a technicality. While she will never be entitled to receive the pay denied her during the many years she worked for Goodyear, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2009 is designed to prevent future inequities by expanding workers-€™ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.

For more information on this event or the Margaret Cuninggim Women-€™s Center, please contact Kayce Matthews, associate director, at kayce.matthews@vanderbilt.edu or (615) 322-4843.