In 1985, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a lower-court decision that the State of Washington had unlawfully discriminated in pay against employees working in predominantly female jobs. At the district court level, the case had been argued in part according to the logic of comparable worth. Prior to the appellate court's decision, the plaintiffs, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and their attorneys and supporters were optimistic that the district court's ruling would set the stage for a succession of cases that would establish the principle of equal pay for work of equal value under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. In its reversal of the lower court, the appellate court lowered the curtain on this impending legal drama before the end of the first act. A subsequent settlement of $100 million provided some relief for the affected state employees, but did nothing to revive the effort to expand legal theories of pay discrimination against women. This case, which in retrospect was a turning point for pay equity in the federal courts, is the basis for this chapter's investigation of pay inequality in a state pay system.

In many ways, AFSCME v. State of Washington provides a sharp contrast to the Christensen case that we analyzed in the preceding chapter. AFSCME reflects how much the social environment was different in Washington State in the 1980s than in midwestern Iowa in the 1970s.