Good morning! Second lady Usha Vance will visit Greenland, a Zuckerberg sister launches a new fund, and a new film about activist Lilly Ledbetter is here on Equal Pay Day.
- Fair pay. Lilly Ledbetter cemented her place on the national political stage in 2008, when she gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention. The former Goodyear employee from Alabama had sued the tire company for employment discrimination in 1998 after she found out she was paid less than her male counterparts over her decades at the company. She initially won more than $3 million in damages from Goodyear, but lost on appeal and then lost again at the Supreme Court on a technicality—the statue of limitations on discrimination had expired, because the time limit was counted from her first paycheck two decades earlier, not her most recent one.
Ledbetter became a surrogate on the 2008 Democratic campaign trail, and when President Barack Obama took office, the first piece of legislation he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which closed the loophole that had prevented Ledbetter from winning her case. Though she never received any money from Goodyear, she became a critical figure supporting Democratic causes—and on days like today, which is Equal Pay Day, marking how far into the year women have to work to earn what men did the year prior.
