Using a different pen for each letter of his name (to maximize the number of souvenir pens available for those involved in the bill's passage), President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on January 29, 2009.

That the nation's first black president was signing his first bill into law marked an important civil rights moment, but the bill itself marked another. Former president Bush had preemptively refused to sign such a law when it was first proposed almost two years ago, just as he had with a variety of other pieces of antidiscrimination legislation. (As discussed in Chapter 19, similar threats were issued against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have banned employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.)

President Obama's decision to proudly sign the Ledbetter Act thus signals not only more robust protection against pay discrimination but also the potential for further improvements and expansion to our nation's civil rights laws. As Obama declared in his speech at the Ledbetter signing, the bill sends “a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.”

Through her loss at the Supreme Court – and her will to fight for other women in her situation – Lilly Ledbetter became a sort of folk hero. She waged the fight invited by Justice Ginsburg, who lamented in dissent that “[o]nce again, the ball is in Congress’ court.” She was inviting Congress to step in, as it had in 1991, to overrule stingy readings and narrow interpretations of anti-discrimination laws.

CONGRESS HEEDS JUSTICE GINSBURG'S CALL: THE LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT OF 2009

Although Ledbetter dealt with a rather technical rule, it promised significant adverse effects for victims of pay discrimination. It effectively immunized employers from Title VII liability for pay discrimination in many cases.

Within just a few weeks of the Ledbetter decision's issuance, the House Education and Labor Committee convened a hearing as a first step toward considering whether to take corrective legislative action to correct the Court's interpretation. Congress ultimately considered two versions of a bill to restore the paycheck accrual rule – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Fair Pay Restoration Act.