Supreme Court Delivers Good News for Pregnant Women, Bad News for Workers

March 21, 2001

---

"Today's Supreme Court rulings in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, South Carolina and Circuit
City Stores, Inc. v. Saint Clair Adams are a good news-bad news situation: it's a good day if you
are a pregnant woman and a bad day if you are employed outside the home" said NOW
Executive Vice President Kim Gandy. "While the Court on one hand acknowledged that
pregnant women have Fourth Amendment protection from invasive drug testing, on the other
hand it set protection against workplace discrimination back substantially."

"NOW applauds the Court's 6 to 3 decision in Ferguson acknowledging that pregnant women are
protected from illegal search and seizure of their bodies through involuntary drug testing,"
Gandy said. "At the same time, feminists are outraged by the Circuit City Stores decision."

"The Court's decision in Circuit City Stores shattered major workplace protection by allowing
employers to circumvent the judicial system in favor arbitration panels, which are often stacked
against employees," Gandy said. "Circuit City Stores is another in a string of 5 to 4 decisions
chipping away at civil rights laws." The Court has been divided by one vote on cases involving
the Violence Against Women Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act.

"Yet another 5 to 4 split on civil rights, combined with the possibility that Justice O'Connor, the
fifth vote in these cases, may retire as early as this summer, underscores the need for NOW's
Emergency Campaign for Women's Lives," Gandy said. "This campaign, though centered around
reproductive rights, will mobilize women and men across the country to pressure the U.S. Senate
to reject nominees to the High Court who will not uphold women's and other civil rights."