Pay Discrimination Claims After Ledbetter

ON MAY 29, 2007, a bitterly and closely divided United States Supreme Court ruled that pay decisions are "discrete acts" and that a Title VII plaintiff alleging intentional pay discrimination must focus exclusively on pay-related decisions made during the 180/300-day charge filing period.1 A Title

VII plaintiff may not challenge pay-related decisions made outside that narrow limitations period even if those earlier decisions were intentionally discriminatory and reduced her subsequent pay during the charge filing period.2 Title VII bans discriminatory decisions, i.e., "discrete acts," that affect pay, but does not ban the mere payment of discriminatorily set pay unless the pay system itself is facially discriminatory. Because Title VII bans only discriminatory pay decisions, a Title VII plaintiff must timely challenge the alleged discriminatory decision. Because Ledbetter did not claim that Goodyear's pay system was facially discriminatory and because she failed to timely challenge any alleged discriminatory pay decision, the Supreme Court rejected her claim.3