AP News, October 23rd, 2007
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards told high school students Tuesday that the United States has a moral and legal obligation to treat women as equals to men.
During a brief appearance at Merrimack High School, several members of a women's studies class asked the former North Carolina senator to identify and propose solutions to the most prominent issues surrounding women's rights.
Edwards said the issues he has focused on, such as ending poverty and creating universal health care coverage, are women's issues because they affect more women than men.
"I want to be the president who is the most aggressive about enforcing our laws against discrimination against women," he said. "It's about time we actually treat women equally in the United States of America as a moral matter and matter of equality under the law."
Edwards cited pay equity as another major issue and criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for its decision to limit the time workers have to sue their employers for pay discrimination.
In May, the court threw out a Goodyear employee's complaint that she earned thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts, ruling that she filed it too late.
"How is it the woman is supposed to know? They've put the responsibility on her to figure out what the people around her are being paid. This is an example of a distorted view of the law," Edwards said. "When women are being discriminated against, they need to have an effective right to enforce the laws that prevent that discrimination."
The House voted in July to reverse the court's decision. The Senate has yet to consider the measure, which the Bush administration has threatened to veto. Three of Edwards' rivals — Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Chris Dodd — are among sponsors of the Senate bill.
Opponents say the bill would allow workers to bring claims decades after the alleged discrimination occurred and that the measure was designed to benefit trial lawyers — Edwards' former profession.
