New law against employment discrimination has rural root, and local paper does right by the story

President Obama's signing yesterday of a stronger law against employment discrimination was a local story for The Anniston Star, circulation 25,000, because one of its readers, Alabama tire-factory worker Lilly Ledbetter, filed the lawsuit that led to the law named for her. (Ledbetter is directly behind Obama in Associated Press photo)

"The last 10 years have been a sometimes rough and rocky road for Jacksonville's Lilly Ledbetter, but she had vowed to keep on traveling it until what she saw as an injustice was corrected," Mary Jo Shafer, the star's assistant metro editor, wrote in a story done partly by telephone interview with Ledbetter, who was in Washington for the White House signing. It noted that Ledbetter had spoken about the issue at at the Democratic National Convention and was one of several "everyday Americans" Obama invited to ride with him to his inauguration.

Shafer explained the bill: "The act effectively nullifies a 2007 Supreme Court decision that denied Ledbetter an opportunity for redress. Ledbetter did not learn about the sizable discrepancy in pay between her and her male co-workers until near the end of her 19-year career at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden. She sued in 1998, but the high court said in a 2007 5-4 decision that she waited too long to bring the action, overturning a jury decision she had won. The court said a person must file a discrimination claim within 180 days of a company's initial act" of discrimination. (The Gadsden Times, a New York Times Co. daily, ran an AP story.)

The decision "led courts throughout the country to deny discrimination claims in hundreds of cases involving everything from access for people with disabilities to housing to college athletics," Shafer wrote for the family-owned Star. "Under the new law, each new discriminatory paycheck would extend the statute of limitations for an additional 180 days," the usual interpretation before the high court's decison. "The bill cleared the House last year but was blocked by Senate Republicans. Former President Bush had threatened to veto it if passed. Opponents contended the bill would gut the statute of limitations and benefit trial lawyers by encouraging lawsuits." (Read more; the Star is subscription-only but offers a one-day free trial.)