Attorney Anne Brown outlines Iowa�s strong equal-pay law and policy fixes at Iowa City CLE

Anne Brown, an employment attorney who represents women in wage-discrimination cases, told an Iowa City Human Rights CLE audience that Iowas equal-pay law provides unusually strong remedies and that audits and pay-transparency rules would help close the gender wage gap.

Brown said closing the gender pay gap would have large economic effects: "If we actually ever close the gender pay gap, there would be 3.1 million working women lifted out of poverty," she said, adding a referenced estimate of about "$513 billion in new income every year" and that the average woman would earn roughly "$418,800 more over their lifetime." She framed the issue as both individual and macroeconomic.

Brown reviewed relevant legal frameworks, explaining that the federal Equal Pay Act (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act) requires equal pay for "equal work" measured by equal skill, effort and responsibility and generally functions as a strict-liability statute. She said Title VII offers a different cause of action that can reach some claims the Equal Pay Act does not and can allow punitive damages, so plaintiffs sometimes plead both federal claims in the same case.

Turning to Iowa law, Brown said the Iowa Legislature enacted a specific equal-pay provision in Iowa Code 216.6A and amended the Civil Rights Acts damages provision (216.15) so that damages for unequal pay are doubled automatically and tripled for willful violations. "In Iowa that amount is then doubled automatically," she said, "and if you can show a willful violation, it is tripled." Brown described the practical effect as permitting recovery for the "entire period of discrimination" dating to the statutes enactment in 2009.

Brown recounted the Dendinger v. All Steel litigation and recent litigation involving an Iowa State University professor, saying courts have allowed broad use of comparative ("me-too") pay evidence and rejected attempts to limit recovery only to the 300 days immediately before filing in some cases. She said those evidentiary and remedial features make Iowa a favorable forum for certain wage-discrimination claims.

On enforcement and prevention, Brown urged tools beyond litigation: audits of government contractors similar to those once run by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), municipal or state contracting audit requirements, and statutory limits on employer policies that ban salary discussion. "Problems are much easier to fix in the light than they are in the dark," she said, recommending market analyses, disclosed pay ranges and consistent compensable-factor frameworks for setting wages.

Audience members asked whether most employers use methodical pay-setting practices; Brown replied only a minority do and recommended employers use market data, set hiring and pay ranges and document compensable factors. She also described how an employers voluntary pay corrections can start the statutory filing clock, limiting retroactive recovery, and warned attendees that employerinitiated fixes do not always erase liability for earlier discrimination.

Brown encouraged lawyers and nonprofit advocates to pursue wage-discrimination claims and urged community members to support transparency measures and contact legislators if proposals arise to narrow Iowas recovery rules. She offered attendees her briefing and discovery materials by email; the session closed with applause.