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Lilly Ledbetter got her 15 minutes of fame, but a little press won't cover the mortgage. The 59-year-old mother of two had spent 19 years working at the Goodyear tire factory in Gadsden, Alabama, as one of the few women in a supervisory position. In 1998, after learning she'd been getting paid far less than men doing similar jobs, she sued Goodyear under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, alleging gender discrimination in the performance evaluations that had resulted in her lower pay. Five years later, with the backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Ledbetter won a $3.8 million jury verdict against the company. But Goodyear appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against Ledbetter last June. The court's conservative faction concluded that Ledbetter was obliged to sue within 180 days of receiving her first discriminatory paycheck, and was therefore out of luck.
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