Facebook Announces New Standards

Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, announced that the company will be implementing a new set of standards for their contractors and vendors. Facebook contractors and vendors must agree to provide employees with a $15/hour minimum wage, minimum 15 paid days off for holidays, sick time and vacation, and for those workers who do not receive paid parental leave, a $4,000 new child benefit for new parents. These new standards will give all workers, especially parents, more flexibility and make families stronger. Facebook’s announcement follows the trend of Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Vodafone, among others, who have increased their parental leave policies. AAUW advocates a livable wage and access to paid family and medical leave and applauds Facebook’s efforts to support workers and families.

New Title IX Resource Guide

Public awareness of the broad scope of Title IX issues is finally receiving attention. The law applies to recruitment and admissions; counseling; financial aid; sexual harassment, including sexual violence; pregnant and parenting students; school discipline; single-sex education; and employment. It also ensures that there are reporting options, grievance procedures, and nonretaliation Title IX coordinators will now have a resource guide to assist educating their communities about all of Title IX’s scope.

Title IX requires that every school must designate at least one employee who is responsible for coordinating the school’s compliance. This person is sometimes referred to as the Title IX coordinator. Coordinators oversee all complaints of sex discrimination. They also identify and address any patterns or systemic problems at their schools.

Up until now, Title !X coordinators have had no guides for the scope of their jobs nor any resources available to help them. This new resource guide should make their jobs much easier and make the coordinators more effective.

Supreme Court Rules for Plaintiff in Pregnancy Discrimination Case

AAUW’s Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF) supported the case in which the Supreme Court recently decided in favor of the plaintiff, 6 – 3. Peggy Young was the plaintiff in the case Young v. United Parcel Service (UPS). Young sued UPS after the company rejected her request for medically necessary and temporary light-duty work during her pregnancy. Evidence showed that UPS had accommodated male workers with light duties when they were temporarily disabled. Young was forced to take unpaid leave and lost both her health care and income at a critical time. Lower courts sided with UPS. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the majority opinion, which essentially tells employers that if they are accommodating most non-pregnant workers with injuries or disabilities while refusing to accommodate most pregnant workers who need it, they are likely violating the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by placing a significant burden on pregnant workers.

Cheers for Oregon Voting

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) signed a bill that would make voting easier by automatically registering adult citizens in the state who have interacted with the Driver and Motor Vehicle Services Division but have not yet registered to vote. This bill makes Oregon the first state to implement automatic voter registration, 17 years after it became the first state to conduct all elections via mail-in ballots.

Fifty Years Ago

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Fifty years ago this week in the state of Alabama, more than 500 marchers began a 54-mile trek from Selma to Montgomery to take a stand against the systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans in communities all over the state and across the South. The peaceful marchers were met by police in riot gear at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The dramatic images from what is now known as Bloody Sunday helped provide a catalyst for the passage of the bipartisan Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Voting Rights Act would become one of the most successful civil rights laws in American history, an indispensable tool for protecting the right to vote and combating voter discrimination into the 21st century. But the legacy of Selma has been undercut by the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which gutted the Voting Rights Act. Voters in many states faced restrictions at the polls In 2014, contributing to historically low voter turnout, especially among women, minorities, young voters, and the elderly.

That’s why on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, AAUW is calling on members of Congress to support the Voting Rights Amendment Act.