From aauw-atlarge at lists.olympus.net Wed May 3 11:17:53 2006 From: aauw-atlarge at lists.olympus.net (aauw-atlarge@lists.olympus.net) Date: Wed May 3 10:36:55 2006 Subject: [AAUW-atlarge] WA Speech of Nancy Rustad Message-ID: The following is the text of the opening address given by former AAUW President Nancy Rustad at the AAUW-WA convention in Mt. Vernon on Saturday, April 22. Members present requested a copy of the speech for circulation to our members. The speech has been forwarded to the membership listserv by Carolyn Hayek, president@aauw-wa.org: AAUW L2L State Convention Keynote Speech Spring 2006 Transforming Educational Equity into Economic Security: AAUW's Next Charge In 1881, 17 women sat down and decided to create a working group-one where women with a very unusual credential?a college degree?would come together and discuss their pioneering roles in the world as educated women. 125 years later, we're here, celebrating the bravery of women like Marion Talbot and Ellen Richards. We are the descendants of these women and we enjoy many of the freedoms and rights that they had the vision and courage to imagine. WE'VE COME A LONG WAY! ? In general, we now outnumber men on college campuses. ? There is essentially no field of work that we cannot enter. ? We are making profound gains in professional programs. ? With each passing day, women are breaking down barriers, redefining who we are, what we can do, and where we will go. We, along with our daughters and granddaughters are the beneficiaries of the work that those founding members of AAUW started 125 years ago and that AAUW members have kept going, always responding to the next challenge on our path to true equity. However, as Newton suggests, for each action there has been an opposite and equal reaction to our progress. To quote Marie Curie, one of the amazing and talented women whose work was supported by our members: "The way to progress is neither swift nor easy." It harkens back to a time near AAUW's beginning, when a prominent Boston physician tried to publish that, for women, getting a college education would leave them sterile. AAUW responded by conducting research in 1885 that proved he was wrong. The attacks that we've had on our work to promote equity in all aspects of women's lives now often come from journalists with headlines like: ? Men and Women: An Eternal Battlefield? ? Males' Learning Needs Ignored ? Are Men an Endangered Species? With all of our progress, it seems that the basic rights and freedoms for which AAUW and its members have fought for so long are all under fire. Equity is still an issue. And the issue is under attack. So this brings me to talk about exactly what we're all here for this weekend: How are we, as members and beneficiaries of this amazing 125-year legacy, going to lead the charge? The charge for the next 125 years - and, beyond! Fifteen years ago (!), AAUW members helped fund and support reports like How Schools Shortchange Girls, which transformed the way young women were perceived and treated in the classroom. The result was tremendous change that led to massive educational gains for girls. Today, we are charged with a new responsibility. We must build on this foundation and take equity beyond the classroom, beyond the college campus, and beyond where it has ever been in the past. We must transform educational equity into economic security. AAUW's organization-wide programmatic theme, introduced at the 2005 Convention, is "Education as the Gateway to Women's Economic Security." By pulling together the three key threads of this theme: the campus, the workplace, and lifelong learning, we?with your help?will find new ways to accomplish our mission. On campus, we must continue to support women in the ever-expanding number of options they have in their educational careers, removing barriers to their progress, and preserving and enforcing the laws that protect them from discrimination in all forms. In the workplace, we need to expand our support for women in the vast array of careers that they have entered. This must go beyond just getting women in the door, a.. by helping them broker a balance between work and family, b.. by defending them from discrimination and disparate treatment, c.. by providing a network of support and mentoring, d.. by achieving pay equity, and ultimately e.. by shattering the glass ceiling forever. Finally, we need to address equity issues across the spectrum of a woman's life, from kindergarten through retirement. Are young girls pursuing education and careers in all fields, including science and technology? [AAUW WA EYH, STEM initiative] Are women prepared to make critical financial decisions for themselves and their families? These types of questions lead to the third thread?lifelong learning. We need to give women the knowledge and the tools to achieve financial literacy, the key to their lifelong economic security. Our accomplishments in the classroom and in the workplace are only as good as what they mean when viewing women's lives in their entirety-and right now, we aren't meeting that challenge! Charge #1: On Campus On campus, AAUW has been hard at work in its efforts to remove the barriers that continue to keep women from key achievements. In 2006, through the support of AAUW members, we successfully released Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus, a research report from the AAUW Educational Foundation that builds on its groundbreaking Hostile Hallways report in 2001 on bullying, teasing, and sexual harassment in school-a report that spurred national attention on the issue at the K-12 level. Drawing the Line exposes the problems of sexual harassment at the next level of education-college campuses. The findings were a cause for alarm. Nearly two-thirds of college students say that they've encountered some type of sexual harassment while at college. These incidents happen in schools large and small; public and private, and to students of every demographic. And for all of them, the effect is a less productive, secure, and effective educational experience, on which much of their future successes will be based. As a gateway to economic security, college is a defining experience. And we know that a college education plays a vital role in ensuring career success and long-term economic security for women. Without a college degree, women earn substantially less pay, receive far fewer employee benefits, and are less likely to be financially independent. AAUW is again working on ways to change things. Last fall, we put out a call for students, faculty, and administrators on campuses around the nation to submit proposals for projects that will result in addressing, researching, and responding to sexual harassment on campus. This year, we've started some of these projects. Eleven institutions of higher learning have received Campus Action Project grants from AAUW's Leadership and Training Institute to become part of our Building a Harassment-free Campus initiative. These programs are rooted in five areas of concentration: a.. addressing policies and procedures, b.. developing a campus dialogue, c.. working on communications and media, d.. examining the student experience, and e.. developing web-based tools. They aim to extend awareness of the persistent and destructive problem of sexual harassment on campus, create an impact and affect change in the campus climate, and provide an avenue for ongoing support and leadership training for women leaders. In essence, these projects will transform the campus climate so that equity may thrive. We will be watching closely as these projects are completed, seeking ways in which the learning from them can be shared with other campuses. [use as MODEL] This summer, in Washington, D.C., AAUW will take what we're learning a step further, to work with hundreds of students from across the country when they join us for the 2006 National Conference for College Women Student Leaders, featuring a Summit on Sexual Harassment: Leading Change on Campus and Beyond. The conference will continue its tradition of leadership development, but this year we will explore perspectives and skills necessary to transform the campus climate, focusing on the Drawing the Line research and the Campus Action Projects. By participating in a national dialogue, engaging in experiential learning, and strengthening leadership skills in the context of a critical campus issue, we will equip the next generation of women leaders to become self-sufficient and to lead change on campus, and beyond. A safe, secure, and harassment-free campus environment is not a choice. It is a right. With your support, AAUW is working to transform this into a reality. Charge 2: In the Workplace Once women leave campus with their diplomas in hand and head to the workplace, they're finding a much more open and accepting environment than many of us did on our first days in the workforce [3M story]. Women are breaking into more non-traditional fields than ever before, becoming a more familiar face in medical, legal, and business domains. They have access to better earnings, financial assets, and benefits. There were 72 million women employed in the U.S. in 2004, representing 59 percent of the workforce. And 37 percent of these women worked in management, professional, and related occupations compared with 32 percent of men. However, much of this great progress has, unfortunately, led to many observers arguing that discrimination in the workplace is a thing of the past. But let's step back for a moment to consider the facts: a.. AAUW's research revealed that a typical college-educated woman working full-time earns $44,200 a year, compared with a typical college-educated man who makes $61,800. That's a difference of $17,600 annually. b.. Women of color saw an even greater difference as black women earned 32 percent less, and Latinas earned 43 percent less than men did as a whole. c.. Over a working lifetime, estimates of what this wage disparity costs the average American woman, and her family, range from $440,000 to $2 million. AAUW has long had a legacy of leadership in the fight to end wage discrimination. As early as 1922, AAUW's legislative program called for a reclassification of the U.S. Civil Service and for a repeal of salary restrictions in the Women's Bureau. Today, AAUW members use a variety of means to bring attention to this critical issue, including annual activities to commemorate Equal Pay Day. To match men's earnings for 2005, women have to work from January 2005 to April 2006-an extra four months. Equal Pay Day, celebrated this year on April 25th, provides AAUW members an annual opportunity to gain the attention of the local community, media, federal government, and others. But Equal Pay Day is not just about disseminating information out to the masses, it is also about mobilizing around the issue to educate your community, increase activism on the issue of pay equity, and continue the process of change. Supportive legislation includes: the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act. AAUW members must take up the charge to support this legislation, to lobby our leaders until it passes, and to educate women about what is really happening with their salaries. Pay equity is not a privilege, it's our right, and we need to claim it. Support for other measures that help women balance their work responsibilities and family responsibilities also needs to be defended and expanded. ? Despite their full-time workweeks, working women also carry the majority of responsibilities for care giving at home. In households where both parents work, women spend nearly two hours more per day caring for children than do their husbands. ? For women caring for disabled or elderly family members in addition to working full-time, the statistics increase for an average of an additional 20 hours per week providing care at home. Unfortunately, any quick read of the headlines or popular book titles does not represent this reality. One recent publication suggested that these disparities are nearly all rooted in women's choices to work rather than be full-time caregivers. That blatantly ignores the fact that for most women, there is no choice in the matter if they want their families to survive and thrive. For more than a decade, AAUW members actively lobbied Congress on the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act. Today, this legislation is a reality, but it is in constant danger of being compromised through potential regulatory changes. We must recommit to actively watching what our representatives are doing with this important, family-friendly, and thereby women-friendly measure-as well as others like it-and unify to respond swiftly and powerfully when opponents try to roll it back. I hope you join AAUW's rapid response system of e-activists, Action Network, an effective way for us to speak our minds and take action on AAUW public policy priorities before Congress and the administration. Women have worked hard to get the education they need to participate on equal footing in the workplace. We must not tolerate any barriers that keep women from shattering the glass ceiling and any inequity that supports, it once and for all. Charge #3: Lifelong Learning The combination of equity on campus translating into workplace equity brings us to the final aspect of our new charge. We have a responsibility to see that the accomplishments that women are making through their lives result in lifelong economic security. Much of the news over the past year has been on attempts to privatize the Social Security system-an effort that AAUW vigorously and successfully opposed. A positive outcome of the debate is that the issue of financial preparedness has been brought to the forefront of many people's minds. And, from what the statistics show us, women in particular should be paying attention. As it now stands, ? women are over 20 percent more likely than men to live in poverty over the course of their lives. ? Almost 45 percent of all nonmarried women age 65 and older get 90 percent or more of their income from Social Security. ? For more than a quarter of these elderly women, Social Security is their only source of income. Why? Because women are much less likely than men to have pensions or retirement plans, and when they do women's benefits are smaller. Pay equity is a factor here as well, because you can't save money you didn't earn. Just as AAUW and its members have rallied in the past for both reading and civic literacy, it is time for us to rally to empower women to make financially sound decisions. AAUW has the opportunity and the ability to educate and guide women, enabling them to increase their knowledge, competence, and confidence in their abilities as financial actors. The first step is raising awareness of the facts. In the same way that we made the issue of grossly unequal treatment of girls a national focus in the early 1990s, we must make the profound economic inequities that women face, because of their lack of resources, a national priority. We must work to find, support, and replicate successful programs that are being used around the country to help women gain crucial financial literacy skills. Our efforts must start early, when girls are just learning about the value of a dollar and expand to when they are adults making complex financial planning decisions. AAUW must develop and implement the tools for women to create self-sufficient economic safety nets through their retirement years. AAUW, collaborating with donor partners, will develop multiple program activities over the next year and beyond, under the banner Financially Fit for Life. Recognizing that financial literacy is an evolving process, the Leadership and Training Institute will develop a self-paced curriculum and support materials specifically focused on women's financial circumstances and various modes of learning. Additionally, AAUW will sponsor noted financial experts to make presentations on financial literacy at workshops in a variety of forums, offering an opportunity to engage and empower college women who are at a crucial stage of establishing financial habits; middle-aged women who are juggling careers and the needs of their children; and women in retirement who are thinking about how to remain financially fit. Promoting the financial literacy programs in AAUW branches is also a critical component . By offering this multi-faceted training in financial literacy, we can address women's growing need for sound financial knowledge in a continuing education model that offers increasing depth of information as participants gain greater levels of comfort and expertise. Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to become a member of Congress, who was also an AAUW branch member, once said that, "You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." Conclusion We have come a long way in our history, far from our humble yet visionary beginnings around a table in Marion Talbot's home in Boston. a.. AAUW members have seen girls taking math, science, and computer courses with the same ambition and success as boys. b.. We've seen women enter, excel, and even outnumber men on college campuses. c.. We've survived strictly limited career choices and women-only positions to see women lead and run successful multi-national corporations. At every point, AAUW members have identified the problems that stood in the way of women's progress and developed plans to overcome the adversity-implementing the ideas that have led to equity. But we can't forget that there is progress still to be made. Equity is indeed still an issue, on campus, in the workplace, and beyond. We must now join together and build a new legacy of leadership for AAUW - one that transforms educational equity into women's economic security. We must write this next chapter in AAUW's phenomenal history that, 125 years from today, someone will identify as the beginning of the next great movement for equity. a.. We owe it to our founders and those who came before us. b.. We owe it to ourselves, our daughters, our granddaughters, and c.. We owe it those who will come after us. Actor Christopher Reeve said: So many of our dreams at first seem impossible. Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. As we begin to celebrate AAUW's 125th anniversary, and our legacy of leadership, recommit yourself today to AAUW's mission. Make a commitment to join us in transforming educational equity into lifelong economic security for women. Summon the will and make that vision, that dream, for women inevitable. This is my challenge to you today. This is AAUW's charge. Thank you. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.olympus.net/pipermail/aauw-atlarge/attachments/20060503/dae4918f/attachment-0001.html From aauw-atlarge at lists.olympus.net Wed May 31 18:08:34 2006 From: aauw-atlarge at lists.olympus.net (aauw-atlarge@lists.olympus.net) Date: Wed May 31 17:26:53 2006 Subject: [AAUW-atlarge] AAUW-LAF News Release Message-ID: Forwarded by Carolyn J. Hayek, president@aauw-wa.org: AAUW NEWS RELEASE For Immediate Release: May 30, 2006 Contact: Ashley Carr, 202-785-7745/ Carra@aauw.org AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Plaintiffs Find Success in Pay Equity Claims Positive Outcomes Highlight Continuing Need for Enforcement of Pay Equity Laws "Pay inequity continues to plague women in all areas of academia. With women nationwide making 77 cents on average for every dollar men make, women are deprived of a significant amount in real wages and in retirement income as well." - Lisa Maatz, Interim Director, AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Washington - The American Association of University Women Legal Advocacy Fund announces two victories in the ongoing battle for pay equity, with a jury decision against Texas Tech and a settlement with New Mexico Highlands University. The two Legal Advocacy Fund-supported wins came as AAUW's membership was engaged in nationwide efforts in recognition of Equal Pay Day. "These important outcomes occurred at a key time," observed Lisa Maatz, interim director of the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund. "Pay inequity continues to plague women in all areas of academia. With women nationwide making 77 cents on average for every dollar men make, women are deprived of a significant amount in real wages and in retirement income as well." Lucinda Miller, a former professor of pharmacy practice, sued Texas Tech in 2000 for sex discrimination. Miller's claim focused on the denial of tenure and retaliation for her complaints about the discrimination, both in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Texas state laws. Miller's case also included allegations of pay inequity in violation of the Equal Pay Act. Co-plaintiff Elaine King-Miller was the former associate dean for outcome management at the university. During the hiring process, Miller was told that the university was prohibited from paying her more than a specified base salary and $5,000 as an administrative stipend, although Miller later discovered that other professors were paid more. The university allegedly made similar comments to King-Miller, who also discovered that other associate deans were paid more. A jury found in favor of Miller and King-Miller's Equal Pay Act claims and awarded them $58,000 combined in lost wages. "Perhaps because of this long battle, no other woman at Texas Tech will face the same situation and have to come to the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund for help," said Miller. "Unfortunately, Miller's experience is not isolated," cautioned Maatz. "Her courage in facing discrimination head on and fighting for just compensation will help the cause of pay equity for all women." In the second AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund-supported case, Lynn deMartin sued the New Mexico Highlands University in 2005 for sex discrimination in pay, race discrimination, and retaliation for her complaints of sex discrimination, resulting in wrongful termination, all in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New Mexico Human Rights Act. A former director of the Santa Fe Center, deMartin was one of three center directors at the university; the other two were men. Initially, the university president promised all three directors they would be receiving raises, but deMartin later discovered that one of her male colleagues received a salary increase while she had not. After raising the issue, deMartin received a small raise. When the management team - of which deMartin was a part - later received a list of salary information for every employee, deMartin discovered that her two male colleagues were making more than $13,000 more per year than she was, despite the fact that numerous witnesses, including one of her male colleagues, were willing to testify that the work performed by all three directors was identical. DeMartin and the university attempted several settlement conferences without success. According to deMartin, the university did not take her claims seriously. The day the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund informed deMartin that it would support her case, she attended another settlement conference. Upon hearing the news of the AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund's support, the university made a generous settlement offer. "The deMartin settlement illustrates the significance to plaintiffs of AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund support," explained Maatz. "Universities need to understand that these cases are important to thousands of AAUW members nationwide. Unequal pay is a blatant form of sex discrimination and cannot be tolerated. Thanks to her courage and persistence - and a little help from her friends at AAUW - deMartin was able to find justice." The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund, a program of the AAUW Educational Foundation, is the nation's largest legal fund focused solely on sex discrimination in higher education. It provides funding and a support system for women seeking judicial redress for sex discrimination. Learn more about pay equity on campus (http://www.aauw.org/laf/library/payequity.cfm) View the full case summary of Miller v. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (http://www.aauw.org/laf/cases/millerl.cfm) View the full case summary of deMartin v. New Mexico Highlands University (http://www.aauw.org/laf/cases/demartin.cfm) Interviews are available with AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Interim Director Lisa Maatz on this and other cases. Contact AAUW Director of Communications Ashley Carr at carra@aauw.org or 202/785-7745 for more information. ### Visit the AAUW website at www.aauw.org or the AAUW Online Newsroom at www.aauw.org/newsroom to get the latest news from AAUW. Because equity is still an issueT -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.olympus.net/pipermail/aauw-atlarge/attachments/20060531/573bdf91/attachment.html