Latest news with #EqualPayActof1963
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: James Earl Ray escapes from prison
Today is Tuesday, June 10, the 161st day of 2025. There are 204 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 10, 1977, James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee with six others. He was recaptured three days later. Also on this date: In 1692, the first execution resulting from the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts took place as Bridget Bishop was hanged. In 1854, the U.S. Naval Academy held its first graduation ceremony. In 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared war on France and Great Britain, formally entering Italy into World War II. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act of 1963, aimed at eliminating wage disparities based on gender. In 1967, six days of war in the Mideast involving Israel, Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq ended as Israel and Syria accepted a United Nations-mediated ceasefire. In 1978, racehorse Affirmed, ridden by Steve Cauthen, won the 110th Belmont Stakes to claim the 11th Triple Crown. Alydar, ridden by Jorge Velasquez, finished a close second in each of the Triple Crown races. In 1991, 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard of Meyers, California, was abducted by Phillip and Nancy Garrido; Dugard was held by the couple for 18 years before she was found by authorities. In 2018, the rover Opportunity sent its last message from the surface of Mars. Originally expected to serve a three-month mission, Opportunity functioned for over 14 years, traveling over 28 miles across Mars and unveiling critical discoveries about the planet's geology. In 2009, James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist, opened fire in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., killing security guard Stephen T. Johns. (Von Brunn died at a North Carolina hospital in January 2010 while awaiting trial.) In 2020, protesters pulled down a century-old statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy. Today's Birthdays: Political commentator Jeff Greenfield is 82. Actor Frankie Faison is 76. Football Hall of Famer Dan Fouts is 74. Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., is 72. Actor Gina Gershon is 63. Actor-model Elizabeth Hurley is 60. Comedian Bill Burr is 57. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is 53. R&B singer Faith Evans is 52. Actor Hugh Dancy is 50. Country musician Lee Brice is 46. Actor Leelee Sobieski is 42. Olympic figure skating gold medalist Tara Lipinski is 43. Model Kate Upton is 33. Former first daughter Sasha Obama is 24.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Medical center agrees to conduct a pay equity study amid discrimination allegations
This story was originally published on HR Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily HR Dive newsletter. A nonprofit medical center in California agreed to pay $195,000 to settle allegations that it paid a female physician assistant less than her male counterpart for performing a similar job, despite the male physician assistant not having prior experience, according to a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission news release issued Tuesday. An EEOC investigation found that the employer, Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center, paid the physician assistant who filed an EEOC charge of discrimination, as well as two other women, less than the male worker from about April 2022 through August 2023, the federal agency said. The alleged pay discrepancy violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits compensation discrimination on the basis of sex, and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires employers to pay equal wages to women and men who perform similar jobs, per EEOC. The medical center could not immediately be reached for comment. 'This is a good reminder for all employers to set objective criteria when making compensation decisions and to apply those criteria consistently,' Margaret Ly, director of EEOC's San Jose local office, said. 'Instead of basing pay on factors such as prior salary that may be discriminatory, employers should independently evaluate an individual's job-related qualifications.' The agency learned of the alleged discrimination after the female physician assistant filed an EEOC charge of discrimination in July 2023 against the medical center, which operates 15 health centers and clinics. 'It was important to question why I and other women were being compensated less than our male counterpart for performing comparable work,' the filing physician assistant said. 'I am grateful to the EEOC for upholding our right to equal pay. I hope this case encourages others who find themselves in similar situations to advocate for their rights.' Through the pre-litigation conciliation process, the employer agreed to a two-year plan under which it would provide compensatory damages, revise its nondiscrimination policies, conduct a pay equity study and provide training, among other requirements, EEOC said. EEOC outlines tips for employers to prevent pay discrimination, such as making sure managers involved in pay decisions document their decisions about pay and bonuses, retaining those records and consistently applying compensation criteria. The agency also recommends that employers maintain records that explain differences in pay between male and female workers. Progress on shrinking the gender pay gap has stalled in the U.S., even as the number of pay transparency laws climbs, according to Payscale's recent Gender Pay Gap report. In 2025, women earn 83 cents for every dollar men make, a gap that widens as women age, per the report. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's missing the point on DEI and meritocracy, experts say
Executive orders signed recently by President Donald Trump state that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs prioritize diversity over merit in hiring, claiming DEI efforts are an 'immense public waste and shameful discrimination." Some experts in the DEI field disagree, and several tell ABC News that diversity, equity and inclusion programs are aimed at creating a true merit-based system, where hiring, salaries, retention and promotions are decided without bias or discrimination toward employees. Before the anti-discrimination legislative movement of the 1960s -- including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 -- discrimination against certain groups was widespread, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If you were from a dominant group -- generally white people, generally men, straight, cisgender, fully-abled -- you had a huge leg up in terms of getting employment recommendations, higher pay promotions," Erica Foldy, a professor at NYU's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, told ABC News. She continued, "So, Trump and his allies are harking back to this time that they say was more merit-based, but that's not at all how these organizations operated." DEI initiatives -- like implementing accessibility measures for people with disabilities, addressing gender pay inequity, diversifying recruitment outreach, or holding anti-discrimination trainings -- are intended to correct discriminatory organizational practices, experts say. DEI experts argue that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are "on the path of creating more merit-based companies, more merit-based firms," Foldy said, aiming to ensure that qualified people of all backgrounds have an "equal chance of being hired; you're going to be paid the same as employees at comparable levels." "Business as usual, without attention to discrimination, is deeply, deeply inequitable," Foldy said. MORE: These companies are standing by their DEI policies amid backlash Amri Johnson, a DEI expert and author, told ABC News that the ideal of meritocracy operates under the assumption "that opportunities are fair." Today, studies across industries continue to show that discrimination against a person's race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, military background, or other factors continues to permeate the job market. "If organizations truly want the best talent, companies need to be intentional about how they source and engage with talent," said Johnson. Each year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plays a role in hundreds of legal cases concerning ongoing discrimination against protected classes in the workplace. The EEOC's 2023 performance report offers a long list of lawsuits it settled or won that year. One lawsuit noted blatant racist graffiti or comments made by fellow employees, paired with the discriminatory designation of hard physical labor solely for Black employees; others noted the failures of several employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant or disabled workers that led to the employee's termination or job offers rescinded. One study found that racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring continues to be a problem globally. "Relative to white applicants, applicants of color from all backgrounds in the study had to submit about 50% more applications per callback on average," according to research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that analyzed 90 studies involving 174,000 total fake job applications tweaked to include racial indicators but with otherwise similar professional credentials. "Diversity doesn't go away because DEI goes away. It is an inevitable part of any human community (business or otherwise)," said Johnson. "Not learning how to deal with its tensions and complexity is leaving value on the table." Some DEI experts point to research from management consulting firm McKinsey & Company that found that companies with more diversity financially and socially outperform those that are less diverse. "The most successful companies understand that DEI isn't just a '"nice-to-have,'" said Christie Smith, the former vice president for inclusion and diversity at Apple, in a written statement. "It's a driver of innovation, talent attraction, and competitive advantage. The question is whether leaders will have the courage to stay the course and hold firm against political headwinds." On Thursday, Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for air traffic controllers at the Federal Aviation Administration were partly to blame for the tragic plane and helicopter collision in Washington on Wednesday night. The accusation comes after Trump signed sweeping orders aiming to terminate "diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility" programs in or sponsored by the federal government and its contractors. The White House argues that DEI programs "deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system." "Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great," reads Trump's executive order. MORE: Department of Education dismisses book ban complaints, ends guidance The order revokes several decades-old or years-old executive actions, including the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order prohibiting hiring discrimination by federal contractors and its amendments expanding professional development, data collection and retention opportunities. The order also explicitly revokes a 1994 order to develop environmental justice strategies that address disproportionately high health and environmental impacts faced by low-income or minority communities. Among the list of orders that are now revoked is a 2011 order requiring federal agencies to develop strategies "to identify and remove barriers to equal employment opportunity." Those in favor of axing DEI programs argue that these initiatives could lead to lawsuits claiming discrimination following the Supreme Court's ruling on SFFA v. Harvard that disallows race to be taken into consideration in college applications. The National Center for Public Policy Research has been a strong advocate against DEI, submitting shareholder proposals to reverse the DEI policies at major companies like Costco, John Deere, and others. Ethan Peck, deputy director for the NCPPR's Free Enterprise Project, told ABC News that such companies should be "colorblind." "We're saying that companies have an obligation, a legal obligation, and an obligation to their shareholders, and an obligation to their employees to treat everybody the same, regardless of their race and sex, and we'd submit any proposal to keep that that way," Peck said. Trump's missing the point on DEI and meritocracy, experts say originally appeared on
