When the Justice Department releases 1,500 pages of material, I guess you can expect some surprises. But we weren't expecting this. Late last year, an official of the Justice Department reportedly told Senator Pryor and the media that they didn't appoint a female first assistant U.S. Attorney as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas because she was on maternity leave. If that's true, the Justice Department has some explaining to do.

Justice Department officials should know better. Pregnancy is never a legal, valid or appropriate reason to deny anyone an appointment or promotion; and singling out maternity leave as a reason to deny a woman a job sends a terrible message to employers.

Pregnancy discrimination has been illegal in this country for more than 40 years, but that doesn't mean we've stopped it. In fact, it's on the rise. Our study a few years ago found that pregnancy discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC rose by 39 percent from FY 1992 to FY 2003. We hear about more cases every day.

We need to re-establish that discrimination is wrong and will have consequences. So we're asking the Inspector General to review all Justice Department practices to ensure that no employee is penalized for being pregnant or taking parental leave. And we're asking the Administration to vigorously enforce anti-discrimination laws – and to follow the law itself. It's the very least we should expect.