Justice Ginsburg outraged

Conservative politicians love to slam those in the judiciary they consider to be liberal "activist judges legislating from the bench." In Tuesday's supreme court decision you have a very clear example of 5 conservative justices (re)legislating from the bench, deliberately undermining the clear intent of federal legislation to protect workers from pay discrimination.

From an article in Tuesday's New York Times: "WASHINGTON, May 29 — The Supreme Court made it harder today for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight timeframe to file such cases. Dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 15 men, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.
The court held today that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day."

What the five men in the court's conservative majority did was to use their judicial power to further erode the limited protections afforded U.S. workers under the Civil Right Act of 1964. In particular Justices Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Kennedy decided to ignore decades of legal precedent and enforcement practice related to Title VII of this Act. This part of the Act specifically declares discrimination in pay based on gender to be unlawful. Because the language of this part of Title VII also refers to discrete acts of discrimination, such as a decision not to promote, or an improper dismissal, the language includes provisions requiring the timely filing of charges following the alleged act(s) of discrimination.

The brief for the petitioner in this case merely repeats the common-sense interpretation of how this statute applies to pay discrimination:
"[E]ach paycheck that offers a woman less pay than a similarly situated man because of her sex is a separate violation of Title VII with its own limitations period, regardless of whether the paycheck simply implements a prior discriminatory decision made outside the limitations period." Brief is quoted in Alito's decision, found here. This is the only sensible way to interpret the law, and is indeed how the law has been interpreted for more than 40 years.

Think about it. If a decision is made by a big city mayor many years ago to coerce annual "contributions" to his campaign fund from all vendors doing business with the city, and his successors continue this same corrupt practice, are they no longer guilty of extortion because their continued collection of graft merely "implements a prior decision."?!! According to Alito's twisted logic this would be the case.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg deserves kudos for her excellent dissenting opinion in this case, and for her brave decision to read the dissent aloud.