American Civil Liberties Union

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act. On June 10, 1963, Congress enacted the first law to require employers to pay women the same salaries that they pay men. When the law was enacted, I was not quite one month old.

My mother fought for passage of the EPA. She brought me, her newborn baby, to a march on Washington to demand equal pay for women. My childhood was permeated with debates about "Women's Lib." Although she, like my father, was a university professor, prior to passage of the EPA, Columbia University could pay her less than it paid my dad, simply because she was a woman. Passage of the Equal Pay Act was the first major victory of the "second wave" women's movement.

This June 10th, the ACLU will join organizations and individuals across the country to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a landmark law that required equal pay for equal work for women for the first time. If you don't mind us tooting our own horn for a minute, the ACLU played an instrumental role in the passage of the Equal Pay Act 50 years ago and in expanding women's rights since our founding in 1920.

In 1963, we could have only dreamed of a woman with a realistic shot at the White House, or a female Speaker of the House or Secretary of State. There were no women heading Fortune 500 companies, jetting into space, or sitting on the Supreme Court. The average women had limited educational opportunities and very few career options, and in the jobs they had, on average, they still only made 60 cents on the dollar that men did.

The Supreme Court ruled this morning 5-4 that a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging sex discrimination in pay and promotions at Wal-Mart cannot go forward.