Lilly Ledbetter, Equal Pay Pioneer, Dies at 86

Mar. 15, 2025

Lilly Ledbetter in January 2016.Photo:Mark Wilson/Getty

Mark Wilson/Getty

Lilly Ledbetter, a pioneer in the fight for gender pay equity, died on Saturday, Oct. 12. She was 86.

“Lilly Ledbetter passed away peacefully last night at the age of 86,” her family said in a statement issued toCNNand AL.com, which was the first to report the news, on Sunday.

Ledbetter worked at Goodyear Tire & Rubber for 19 years when she discovered that she was being paid thousands of dollars less each month than her male counterparts doing the same job.

In 1999, Lilly Ledbetter sued Goodyear for gender discrimination, initially winning her case in federal court and being awarded $3.8 million in back pay and damages in 2003. However, the decision was later overturned when Goodyear appealed.

The case reached the Supreme Court in 2007, where the justices ruled 5-4 that Ledbetter should have filed her lawsuit within 180 days of her first unequal pay compared to her peers. Since she missed this deadline, the court determined she had no grounds to proceed with her suit.

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“That was the most awesome emotion I think that I have ever had,” Ledbettertold CNN in 2018. “I’ll put it behind having a son and a daughter.”

On Sunday, Obama, 63, took to social media to share Ledbetter’s impact on the world. “Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting,” the former president wrote onX(formerly Twitter).

He added, “Lilly did what so many Americans before her have done: setting her sights high for herself and even higher for her children and grandchildren.Michelle [Obama]and I are grateful for her advocacy and her friendship, and we send our love and prayers to her family and everyone who is continuing the fight that she began.”

source: people.com