The ACLU and others have joined the appeal of a federal equal pay lawsuit in which a mere showing of unequal pay for women who were emergency room doctors at the VA hospital in Little Rock wasn’t sufficient to establish a claim of discrimination.
The ACLU news release:
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, the ACLU of Arkansas, and 23 women’s rights organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to reconsider a legal ruling that makes it more difficult for women to fight unlawful sex-based pay disparities under the Equal Pay Act. The Federal Circuit is a federal appellate court in Washington, D.C., that can hear equal pay claims from the nation’s federal employees, close to half of whom are women.
“Women in Arkansas are still paid just 79 cents for every dollar earned by men – a wider pay gap than most other states,” said Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas. “The Equal Pay Act makes clear that paying women less than men for the same work is discrimination. We are hopeful that the Federal Circuit will review this decision and find that women should not face additional hurdles to be paid equally for equal work.”
The brief was filed in the case of Gayle Gordon and Teresa Maxwell, emergency room physicians at a VA hospital in Little Rock, Ark. Gordon and Maxwell accuse the VA of paying them less than several male doctors who perform similar work. Although the plaintiffs had shown unequal pay for equal work—which should have meant they won unless the VA could prove the disparity was due to a legitimate reason—a three-judge panel of the appeal court ruled against them based on the court’s requirement that plaintiffs provide additional evidence of discrimination in addition to the pay disparity. Two weeks ago, the plaintiffs petitioned for all 12 judges of the appeals court to rehear their case and to eliminate that requirement.
Today’s friend-of-the-court brief in Gordon v. United States supports Gordon’s and Maxwell’s request for their case to be reconsidered. The civil rights groups assert that the additional requirement that the women show “discrimination” in addition to a pay disparity is a misreading of the Equal Pay Act.
