Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill making it easier to file discrimination lawsuits concerning unfair wages.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed on Jan. 22 with a 61-36 vote, according to the House Committee on Education and Labor's Web site.

Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for 20 years before she realized in 1998 that she was paid less than her male coworkers. A lower court found Goodyear guilty of intentionally discriminating against Ledbetter because of her gender and assigned her back pay.

According to Janet Boles, professor of political science, the Supreme Court overruled this decision by reinterpreting the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Court reinterpreted the law, ruling that a suit must be filed within 180 days of the decision to discriminate, usually the first paycheck.

This bill would overturn the May 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Supreme Court decision. The bill reinstates the previous interpretation of the law. Employees would be able to file suit 180 days after each paycheck or discriminatory action.

In her communication to Ledbetter v. Goodyear, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, "Compensation disparities…are often hidden from sight. It is not unusual…for management to decline to publish employee pay levels, or for employees to keep private their own salaries."

Aaron Albright, the press secretary for the House's Committee on Education and Labor, said the Ledbetter case was "an example of (an) egregious Supreme Court decision that we need to fix immediately."

Committee on Education and Labor and its chairman, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), sponsored the Ledbetter Act.

The act will "help succeeding generations of women," Boles said. The bill will also protect against race, age and disability discrimination, according to Boles.

"The Ledbetter bill is trying to address real basic, straight forward discrimination," said John Cotton, a professor in the College of Business Administration.

The bill will make it easier to sue for any kind of pay discrimination, Cotton said.

Rachel MacKnight, communications director for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), said the "most important thing is that people have (the) opportunity to use court." Mikulski sponsored the Ledbetter Act in the Senate.

According to the Web site for the National Women's Law Center, full-time working women earn approximately 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

The reason for this discrepancy is disputed.

"Women's work is underpaid and undervalued," Boles said.

The jobs many women are drawn to pay less, usually because women are the ones doing it, Boles said. Cotton said the relationship of women working in underpaid fields is similar to the chicken and the egg scenario.

Cotton said the reasons for the wage gap are complex. Society's assumption that women should be primary caregivers makes it difficult to advance in the workplace, he said.

Common reasons given to discredit the wage gap include: women often have differences in education and seniority compared to their male counterparts, and they take time off of work for pregnancy leaves.

Boles said the wage gap increases with age. Recent graduates are able to get better equal paying jobs than older women, she said.

The House will have to approve the changes made by the Senate to the Ledbetter Bill. This is expected to happen early this week, Albright said.

Obama is expected to sign the bill into law.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, a complement to the Lilly Ledbetter Act, would prevent employees from being punished for disclosing their salary to coworkers, Boles said.