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Lithwick on Ledbetter

Slate: SCOTUS and Senate are "protecting us from the dangerous laws that protect us."

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In case you weren’t riled up enough by James Hannaham’s recent post on the matter (“lame ducks can still do damage to women’s and workers’ rights”), watch Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick open up a can of whup-ass on the Supreme Court and Senate’s actions on the Lilly Ledbetter fair-pay legislation. Highlights include:

  • “Many of the Republicans who blocked the vote to reinstate the original reading of Title VII claimed they were doing so to protect women — read ‘stupid women’ — from the greedy clutches of unprincipled plaintiffs’ attorneys and from women’s own stupid inclination to sit around for years — decades even — while being screwed over financially before they bring suit. That means they were, in effect, just protecting us from the dangerous laws that protect us. Whew.”

  • “For those of you who suspect that gender discrimination rarely comes amid the blaring of French horns and accompanied by an engraved announcement that you are being screwed over, it’s worth having a gander at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent.

  • “And the very notion that extending the statute of limitations somehow encourages scads of stupid women to loll around accepting unfair wages for decades in the hopes of hitting the litigation jackpot in their mid-70s is just insulting. ‘Sorry, kids! SpaghettiOs again tonight, but just you wait till 2037! We’ll dine like kings, my babies!'”

  • “No need to fix Title VII! Just build more aggressive women!”

  • Use of the word “Vulcan” (hint: near the word “Alito”).

    • OK? Go. Just go.

    By Lynn Harris

    Award-winning journalist Lynn Harris is author of the comic novel "Death by Chick Lit" and co-creator of BreakupGirl.net. She also writes for the New York Times, Glamour, and many others.

    MORE FROM Lynn Harris

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