Unequal Pay Days

Most everyone knows that, on average, women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. This year April 8th was declared Equal Pay Day as the day when women’s pay equaled the pay that men earned in all of 2013. But did you know that there are several really Unequal Pay Days?

June 12 was moms’ Equal Pay Day, the symbolic day when moms’ earnings catch up to dads’ from the previous year. It takes so long because working mothers typically are paid 69 cents for every dollar working dads are paid. June 16 is African American women’s Equal Pay Day, and November 12 is Latinas’ Equal Pay Day. Tell Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

A Favorable ruling for Plaintiff

The Massachusetts Commission against Discrimination (MCAD) recently upheld a ruling in favor of LAF-supported plaintiff Lulu Sun in her gender and race discrimination case against the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. In June 2011 an MCAD hearing officer concluded that the university had violated Massachusetts’ anti-discrimination laws and ordered the university to 1) promote Sun, with retroactive pay back; 2) pay $200,000 in emotional distress damages, plus 12 percent interest from the date the complaint was filed; 3) pay the commonwealth of Massachusetts a $10,000 civil penalty; and 4) conduct an anti-discrimination training for its human resources staff, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the provost, and the chancellor.

After the June 2011 decision, the university promoted Sun to the position of full professor but appealed the emotional distress award, the civil penalty, and the anti-discriminatory training requirements to the full commission. In its most recent ruling the commission upheld the MCAD hearing officer’s decision, ordering the university to pay the emotional distress damage award and civil penalty and to conduct anti-discrimination training.

The University may still appeal so the case is not over.

UCR Student Accepted by 9 Med. Schools

By Betty Miller

The acceptance letters kept coming. UC Riverside School of Medicine. UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. UC Davis. UC San Francisco. Cornell. Columbia. USC. Northwestern. University of Pittsburgh.

Festus Ohan was elated. Nine letters in all.

Not bad for a young man who spent his teen years in foster care with providers who labeled his dream of becoming a physician “unrealistic.” Not bad by any measure, said Dr. Neal Schiller, senior associate dean of student affairs at the UCR School of Medicine.

“It is quite impressive to have received nine acceptances. Only exceptional students would receive this many offers,” he said. “Festus Ohan is a unique, gifted student who has overcome incredible obstacles to achieve his dream. We are very proud of him.”

Ohan, 22, will enroll at UCLA in August, the recipient of a David Geffen Medical Scholarship that will provide full financial support including a living stipend, tuition, room and board, books and supplies. It was the only medical school to offer that level of financial support, a factor that influenced his decision to enroll there.

READ MORE about and from this remarkable man (and other inspiring stories).

Title IX Hearing

U.S. 9th CIRCUIT

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was the first comprehensive federal law to prohibit sex discrimination in education. It covers women and men, girls and boys, and staff and students in any educational institution or program that receives federal funds. You know what’s happened to women’s athletics in our high schools, colleges, and universities as a result of this legislation, but there’s more to be done.

On Tuesday, June 3, 3014 at 9:30 AM in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the oral arguments will be given for the Title IX athletics case of Ollier vs Sweetwater Union High School District which was originally filed in 2007. On February 9, 2012, Judge James M. Lorenz ruled in favor of the female athletes determining the school district unfairly favored boys’ sports over girls’ sports at Castle Park High School by giving the boys better athletic facilities, resources and opportunities.

Budget 101

It’s that time again. Budget season!

Washington is moving into budget mode and beginning discussions on the federal budget for fiscal year 2015, which begins October 1, 2014. A December 2013 budget agreement set the budget ceiling, or how much Congress could spend, for fiscal year 2015 at $1.014 trillion. But that agreement doesn’t mean that policy makers won’t try to make political points when cutting the proverbial pie to fund individual programs.

Budgets are an expression of values, and politicians of all parties use them to express their priorities. Take President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, released earlier. The $3.9 trillion proposal has no realistic chance of becoming law, but it does express the president’s policy priorities.

By reading his budget, we can see that Obama views affordable higher education, campus safety, early childhood learning, workforce training, paid leave, and increased enforcement against gender pay discrimination as priorities, because his proposal increases funding for these programs. These are AAUW priorities as well — as we’ve repeatedly told the administration and Congress — and we’re glad to see them supported.