Equal Pay Appeal by U.S. Women Soccer Players Set for March 7 in Pasadena Courtroom

Pasadena’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in March will hear oral arguments in a case brought by players on the U.S. women’s national soccer team seeking equal pay.

“We hope 2022 will be the year of peace and health — and equal pay. We look forward to these oral arguments,” said players spokeswoman Molly Levinson in a statement released on Sunday.

In March 2020, a federal judge in Pasadena rejected the players’ claims that they were paid less than the men’s national team.

The team originally filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation in March 2019, with 28 members of the team listed as plaintiffs.

According to the lawsuit, the U.S. Soccer Federation’s discriminated against women by paying them less than men “for substantially equal work and by denying them at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment equal to the MNT.”

The women asked for more than $64 million in damages plus $3 million in interest under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 2019, the team won the Women’s World Cup in France. Following the historic victory the team embarked on a five-game victory tour across the country that kicked off in the Rose Bowl when the team faced Ireland.

Judge R. Gary Klausner wrote in his decision that members of the USWNT did not prove wage discrimination under the Equal Pay Act because the women’s team played more games and made more money than the men’s team.

According to Klausner, the women’s team also rejected a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) where they could have played under the same pay structure as the men’s team in favor of a different CBA.

“This approach — merely comparing what each team would have made under the other team’s CBA — is untenable in this case because it ignores the reality that the MNT and WNT bargained for different agreements which reflect different preferences, and that the WNT explicitly rejected the terms they now seek to retroactively impose on themselves,” Klausner wrote.

The judge also ruled the women rejected a structure similar to the one in the men’s agreement with the USSF and accepted greater base salaries and benefits than the men. The sides reached a settlement in the allegations of discriminatory working conditions allowing the women to receive the same flights, hotel rooms and staff support as the men’s national team.