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132 Promoting equityevaluate such evidence than are judges (or attorneys on both sides). My favoriteexample of the judicial lack of comprehension of statistics was a USDistrict Court judge’s inability to understand that if women’s initial salarieswere less than men’s and yearly increases were across-the-board fixed percentages,the gap would grow progressively larger each year.A2007SupremeCourtdecision(Ledbetter,2007)madeachievingpayequityfor long-term victims of discrimination virtually impossible. The Courtdeclared that inequities in salary that had existed — and in many cases increased— for many years did not constitute a continuing violation of TitleVII. Litigation would have had to be instituted within a short time after thevery first discriminatory pay check in order for a remedy to be possible. Fortunatelythis gap in coverage was closed by the passage of the Lilly LedbetterFair Pay Act (Ledbetter, 2009), named to honor the victim in the SupremeCourt case; the path to equity may prove easier as a result.12.3 InsuranceSalary inequities are not the only obstacle professional women face. Therecontinues to exist discrimination in fringe benefits, directly financial as wellas indirectly through lab space, assignment of assistants, and exclusionaryactions of various sorts. Early in my career I received a notice from TeachersInsurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), the retirement plan used at mostprivate and many public universities including American University, listingwhat I could expect in retirement benefits from my contribution and thoseof the university in the form of x dollars per $100,000 in my account atage 65. There were two columns, one headed “women” and a second, withamounts 15% higher, headed “men.” When I contacted the company to pointout that Title VII prohibited discrimination in fringe benefits as well as insalary, I was informed that the figures represented discrimination on the basisof “longevity,” not on the basis of sex.When I asked whether the insurer could guarantee that I would live longerthan my male colleagues, I was told that I just didn’t understand statistics.Learning that the US Department of Labor was suing another university thathad the same pension plan, I offered to help the attorney in charge, the lateRuth Weyand, an icon in women’s rights litigation. At first we concentratedon gathering data to demonstrate that the difference in longevity betweenmen and women was in large part due to voluntary lifestyle choices, mostnotably smoking and drinking. In a settlement conference with the TIAAattorneys, one remarked, “Well, maybe you understand statistics, but youdon’t understand the law.”This provided inspiration for me to sign up for law courses, thinkingIwouldlearnalittle.However,itturnedoutthatIreallylovedthestudy