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Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment

Fatima Goss Graves is Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women's Law Center, where she works to promote the rights of women and girls at school and in the workplace. Ms. Goss Graves advocates and litigates core legal and policy issues relating to at-risk girls in school, including those that impact pregnant and parenting students, students in a hostile school climate and students participating in athletics. She further works to advance equal pay for equal work, expand opportunities for women in nontraditional fields, and ensure the development of fundamental legal principles of equal opportunity. She uses a number of advocacy strategies in her work on these issues ranging from public education and legislative advocacy to litigation, including briefs in the Supreme Court and federal courts of appeals. Prior to joining the Center, she worked as an appellate and trial litigator at Mayer Brown LLP. She began her career as a law clerk for the Honorable Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Ms. Goss Graves is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale Law School.

My Take

EEOC: All Present and Accounted For

Posted by Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment | Posted on: April 09, 2010 at 04:00 pm

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

On Wednesday, Jacqueline A. Berrien was sworn in as chair of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Chai Feldblum was sworn in as Commissioner to the EEOC. This is good news for the EEOC, which has been short of its required quorum of commissioners for the first time in decades. It is also good news for the country, for the President has picked stellar nominees with a deep base of experience on the issues that come before the EEOC and longstanding commitment to ensuring fairness in the workplace. But it was not an easy road. 

These nominees had been pending before the Senate since they were voted out of the Senate HELP Committee in late 2009. And on March 27, after the Senate had gone into recess, President Obama appointed fifteen executive-branch nominees who had been pending before the Senate. Berrien and Feldblum were among these, as was Victoria Lipnic (also appointed to be a Commissioner of the EEOC), who will be sworn in later in April. P. David Lopez, the nominee for General Counsel of the EEOC, was also recess-appointed and was sworn in yesterday. 

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End Salary Secrecy, Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act

Posted by Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment | Posted on: March 11, 2010 at 01:48 pm

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

Did you know that employers can penalize or even fire employees for talking about their salaries? This egregious practice leaves workers in the dark, preventing them from ever finding out about pay discrimination in the workplace.

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Oral Argument Today in Lewis v. City of Chicago – An Issue of Fundamental Fairness

Posted by Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment | Posted on: February 22, 2010 at 09:14 pm

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Lewis v. City of Chicago. In that case, the Court examined the question of whether a Title VII plaintiff must file an EEOC charge within 300 days of when the discriminatory practice was adopted or announced, or if a plaintiff may also file within 300 days of when the practice was used by the employer. 

The outcome of this case could dramatically alter the ability of employees to challenge employment tests and may also severely limit the ability of plaintiffs to challenge other employment criteria, such as education requirements, credit checks or no-conviction policies that have an adverse impact on women and people of color. If the Supreme Court adopts the rule advocated by the City of Chicago, such discriminatory practices could be frozen in time.

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Happy Ledbetter Anniversary! Next Stop – Paycheck Fairness

Posted by Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment | Posted on: February 05, 2010 at 07:00 pm

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

Last week we paused at the Center to recognize the one-year anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the historic act that restored the law to ensure that workers would be able to vindicate their pay discrimination claims in court, by making it clear that each discriminatory paycheck is a new act of discrimination that resets the 180-day limit to file a claim. And there was certainly a lot to celebrate – as we’ve noted here, in the year since Congress passed the Ledbetter Act, straightforward fair pay claims have been restored in courts around the country. 

But in these economic times, we simply cannot afford to stop here. With women making up nearly half of all workers, ensuring that women receive fair pay is essential for them, their families, and the broader economy. 

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Secretary Solis on the Ledbetter Act Anniversary

Posted by Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment | Posted on: January 29, 2010 at 09:30 pm

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

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