Issues Before the Courts

The courts have protected students from sexual harassment in school, established the right to use contraceptives, helped women make inroads in police and fire departments around the country, and enforced women's right to equal pay. The robustness of these key legal protections in future years will turn on the balance of power on the federal courts.

Highlights

Fact Sheet | Supreme Court Preview: 2013-2014 Term

October 2, 2013
During the 2013-2014 Term, the Supreme Court will review several cases that concern legal rights of importance to women—including access to abortion, equal opportunity in education, protection against housing discrimination, and the ability to use the Equal Protection Clause to challenge discrimination in public employment. In addition, the Court will review an important case involving the President’s ability to fill vacancies on a body that protects workers. Finally, the Court may decide whether for-profit businesses can refuse to provide employee insurance coverage for contraceptives based on asserted religious objections. The decisions in these cases may have a significant impact on women’s rights in all of these important arenas.
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Fact Sheet | Supreme Court Review: 2012-2013 Term

July 10, 2013

The 2012-2013 Supreme Court Term witnessed a number of blockbuster cases affecting women’s rights, from affirmative action to workplace protections to voting rights to marriage equality. The results in those cases were decidedly mixed, with some historic victories, but also, unfortunately, heartbreaking setbacks. The National Women’s Law Center participated in most of these cases. This fact sheet explains key cases and the potential impacts of their decisions.

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Fact Sheet | The Supreme Court's Decision in Fisher v. UT Austin will be Particularly Important for Women of Color

October 3, 2012

In October 2012, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin to decide whether UT Austin may consider race as a factor in admissions in addition to their race-neutral Top Ten Percent Plan.  This fact sheet explains how the Court's decisions will potentially impact on women of color.

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Fact Sheet | Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor: The Supreme Court Should Presume Laws Discriminating On the Basis of Sexual Orientation are Unconstitutional

March 25, 2013

This term, the Supreme Court will decide United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry. Windsor challenges Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which prohibits the federal government from recognizing marriages between same-sex couples, and Hollingsworth challenges the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment that revoked same-sex couples’ right to marry in that state.  This fact sheet explains why Section 3 of DOMA and Proposition 8 should be subjected to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution and struck down.

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More Resources

Fact Sheet | The Health Care Litigation: What Women Could Lose

March 26, 2012

In 2010, Congress passed the landmark Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as the “Affordable Care Act” or “ACA.” The ACA is intended to achieve near-universal health insurance coverage, slow the growth of health care costs and insurance premiums, and end an array of insurance practices that have prevented individuals from obtaining health insurance and health care. One of the ACA’s primary goals is to improve women’s health and address the discrimination women have faced in the health insurance market—disadvantages and discrimination that often lead women to bear significant costs or go without health care altogether. The law begins to remedy the economic impact of the discrimination that women have long faced in the health insurance market.

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Legal Briefs & Testimony | Amicus Brief: Department of Health and Human Services, et al., v. State of Florida, et al.

January 13, 2012

The National Women’s Law Center's “friend of the court” brief is on behalf of 60 organizations in United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al v. State of Florida, et al. The brief explains what’s at stake for women in the challenge to the new health care law and why the ACA, in correcting fundamental gender inequities in the health insurance and health care markets, is an appropriate exercise of federal Commerce Clause authority and therefore is constitutional.

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Legal Briefs & Testimony | NWLC Written Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Barriers to Justice and Accountability: How the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Will Affect Corporate Behavior

June 29, 2011

On June 29, 2011, Marcia D. Greenberger, on behalf of NWLC, submitted written testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Barriers to Justice and Accountability: How the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Will Affect Corporate Behavior.

The written statement focuses on the Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes and discusses the the importance of class actions in the employment discrimination context and illuminates how the decision could cause great injury for women in the workplace

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Legal Briefs & Testimony | Amicus Brief: State of Florida, et al., v. Department of Health & Human Services, et al.

April 12, 2011

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act makes important advances in women’s health care, addressing a crisis of discrimination and obstacles to access truly national in scope. Indeed, a major purpose and concern of Congress in passing the ACA was improving women’s health and ameliorating the disadvantages and discrimination women have faced in obtaining health care and health insurance. Like the civil rights laws of the past 50 years, the ACA aims at “a moral and social wrong” that itself has profound economic consequences. Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 257 (1964).

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Fact Sheet | The Lilly Ledbetter Act of 2009: Emerging Issues

April 11, 2011

On January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.[1]   The Act overturned the disastrous Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which had severely limited workers’ ability to vindicate their rights under federal anti-discrimination laws that prohibit pay discrimination.[2]   In Ledbetter, the Court held that employers could not be sued for pay discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if the employer’s original discriminatory pay decision occurred more than 180 days before the employee initiated her claim.[3]  The Court concluded that the paychecks Ledbetter continued to receive from her employer were mere “effects” of her employer’s earlier discriminatory decisions, and so did not “reset” the 180-day filing period. 

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