Lilly Ledbetter’s Book to Come out on February 28, 2012

If you haven’t been to the CA state conventions or National convention in the last two or three years, you probably haven’t heard Lily Ledbetter’s compelling story of her struggles at Goodyear Tire Company and subsequently the courts and even the Supreme Court. You can now read about these struggles. Lily has written a book, Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond. AAUW will host an event on March 7 to celebrate the release of Lilly Ledbetter’s book. Ledbetter and AAUW Executive Director Linda Hallman will discuss the road to signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act at the event. Directly as a result of Ledbettter’s unfair treatment by the Company and by the Supreme Court, President Barack Obama famously signed this groundbreaking law, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to reset the statute of limitations for discriminatory pay, as among his first official acts as president in January 2009. Ledbetter’s book comes out on February 28. Additionally, Ledbetter will appear on both CBS’ This Morning and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show on March 5.

Now we need strengthen national pay equity laws by getting the Paycheck Fairness Act passed.

Mansourian v University of California Case Settled

After 10 long years, the University of California and former UC Davis female student wrestlers Arezou Mansourian, Christine Ng, and Lauren Mancuso announced that they have reached an agreement to settle the issues remaining after the findings made by a federal judge last August in the liability phase of trial in the case. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Legal Advocacy Fund supported the plaintiffs in this case and commends the $1.35 million settlement in their favor. Read more about it HERE.

The U.S. District Court for Eastern California found that the university violated Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 by not sufficiently expanding intercollegiate athletic opportunities for female students at UC Davis between 1998 and 2005, the years that the plaintiffs were in attendance. The court dismissed the plaintiffs’ claim against four university employees (all now retired), holding that the employees did not violate the Equal Protection Clause or were entitled to qualified immunity in their handling of the plaintiffs’ requests relating to women’s wrestling.

The damages phase of the trial on the Title IX claim was scheduled to start on March 5, 2012. The parties chose instead to resolve all remaining issues, including any possible appeals, with payment by the university of $1.35 million to the plaintiffs’ counsel for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred during the lengthy case.

Women and the State Budget Crisis

It’s no secret that women have suffered more than men from the recession and this is particularly true in California. A report released this month by the California Budget Project and a blog by the California Work & Family Coalition, certainly chronicles this. California has the seventh largest gap between the rich and poor among the 50 states, ranking between Alabama and Texas and the gap widened to a greater extent in California than in the US as a whole. The incomes of the wealthy increased significantly over the past two decades, while those of all other Californians declined. The cuts that have been made to deal with California’s budget crisis have fallen mainly on the backs of the middle class and poor where women are a majority. A loss of jobs has been a major result of cuts. The majority of women’s job losses were in the public sector — public schools and city and county jobs.

Women are recovering from the recession more slowly than men. During the modest job recovery of the last year, mens’ job gains kept pace with the growth in the male working-age population while the share of working-age women with jobs declined by 1.5 percentage points.

Unmarried mothers have been particularly hard hit by the recession.The employment rate for California’s unmarried mothers dropped by 10.4 percentage points, from a recent peak of 69.2 percent in 2007 to 58.8 percent in 2010. The share of these families with incomes below the federal poverty line increased by 3.7 percentage points, from 31.7 percent to 35.4 percent. That’s more than a third of all single-mother families in California are living below the poverty level.

Exacerbating the problem for women, and particularly unmarried mothers, has been the cuts in health and human services programs most needed by women. These include cuts in MediCal, In Home Services, SSI/SSP, CalWORKS, and child care. And unfortunately the Governor’s Proposed 2012-2013 Budget includes more cuts in these areas.

The Komen Foundation Defunds Planned Parenthood

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation is the premier organization funding breast cancer research and breast health services. They recently decided to remove all funding to Planned Parenthood for their extensive breast screening services. Planned Parenthood health centers are often the main source of health care for women in underserved communities, and they provide 830,000 breast exams every year. Without Komen’s funding, many of these women will be unable to get the screenings and early detection of breast cancer that saves lives.

Why this decision to stop funding the Planned Parenhood breast screening services? Planned Parenthood is under attack by the anti-choice crowd who would have us believe that Planned Parenthood is nothing more than an abortion factory. The move on the part of the Komen Foundation comes less than a year after Komen hired a new vice president, who has publicly stated her opposition to abortion, a service provided at some Planned Parenthood facilities.

In protest to this defunding, AAUW has cancelled a pre-conference activity at the upcoming National Conference for College Women Student Leaders (NCCWSL) with the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Other organizations should follow our example.

Chancellor White of UCR Visits SEIBC

Click here for a photo slideshow!

By Taffy Geith

On Saturday, January 28, at 9:30 AM, the South East Inter-Branch Council of AAUW joined together once again at the Habitat for Humanity, 2180 Iowa Ave in Riverside. There was time for coffee and savory, sweet rolls for members to enjoy before the program began.

Jo Turner, President of the South East Inter-Branch Council (SEIBC), warmly greeted everyone attending and apprised members how our organization of 130 years has been improving the lives of women and girls. She cited the current status of our four focus areas. Education: AAUW provided 3.7 million dollars in grants to women in graduate school; Legal Advocacy: Our Fund is supporting two class action suits concerning women working for WalMart who are under-paid and under-promoted; Research: AAUW funded a study on the reason so few girls enter into STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and a more recent study on sexual harassment in school, “Crossing the Line”, which found that 48 percent of girls experienced sexual harassment during the school year; Public Policy: AAUW has a lobby corps in Washington and Sacramento working for laws that benefit women and girls.

Jo introduced our guest speaker, Dr. Timothy White, Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. He is a naturalized citizen, originally from Argentina, with an impressive academic history. He has held various positions at three Universities, the last one as President of the University of Idaho from 2004 to 2008. He gained international recognition for his work in muscle plasticity, injury and aging. He became Chancellor at Riverside in 2008.

Dr. White began by saying that we are in a different era now –yet women and girls still have to fight, but it is getting better. He said that he has a passion for inclusion and opportunity for everyone. UCR has the same ethos and he stated, it is the same as that of AAUW. He read the AAUW Mission Statement –scoring points with members for this sensitivity.

UCR is one of the most diverse Universities in America –racially, ethnically, economically and in sexual-identity. He is proud of this. We are the emergent society, so purposeful in our state and nation. Fifty-two percent of UCR women are in the under-graduate program. Forty-five percent of all graduates are women. Last year’s Freshmen Class was fifty-three percent women –so UCR is pushing up the numbers. Considering the faculty, the UCR campus has a greater percentage of women earning more than male faculty members. UCR is doing things right. Dr. white stated that “on average,” women faculty members advance at a slower pace than men. Women are more stressed than men, so there is still gender discrimination. UCR is working on equality of the faculty.

Why are STEM subjects so important –because they affect us globally! UCR received six-hundred thousand dollars to recruit faculty for STEM subjects. (In the UC system about l.l percent of the STEM field faculty are women. UCR has nine percent of women faculty in the STEM fields). It is important to get girls interested when they ‘re young –before middle school. He mentioned Pam Klute at UCR and her success at getting girls to relate to math.

UCR wants to increase women faculty in all fields. There is a slump in hiring right now, but UCR is a growth campus, and it is important that hiring must be diverse. Revenue is a problem –a nine million dollar hit this year and possibly, a two million dollar hit next year.

Enrollment has grown even with a tuition increase. There is a worry for society that young men and women at UCR, et al., take out loans and end up one-hundred thousand dollars in debt for a four year degree. If their first job income is not high, they can’t repay their loans. That means they won’t be public education teachers, for example, –they’ll have to work at IBM or some other corporation at a highly lucrative job. They can’t go into public education. This is important for our community –where will we be in our world order, if we can’t create a better educated society –a future legacy for those who are not here yet?

Dr. White spoke briefly about the UCR Medical School, that is not yet accredited. We were well informed by our previous session with Dr. Richard Olds. Dr. White stated that the UCR Medical School is a national model, but yet has no funding from the State. We need to get students early in cities such as Hemet, Coachella, Riverside, etc., so if they’re trained here, they will stay here. Too, a Medical School here in Riverside is good for Riverside’s economy. Presently, patients get their ten-thousand dollar medical analysis in Riverside, but go into LA for their one-hundred fifty thousand dollar medical treatment. Dr. White believes that Riverside is hemorrhaging millions of dollars in medical treatment.

In closing, Dr. White thanked us for inviting him, and was pleased that AAUW is in the process of having a student AAUW affiliate group on campus. He took time for questions, and some “sharing” from members who informed him of our Tech Trek Program.

Members of AAUW realize anew how fortunate we and our community are to have a University with a Chancellor such as Dr. White. He is so knowledgeable, aware and so able to share truths and realities about equality for women and girls and the ways that this equality impacts the whole of our society.