To hear conservatives talk, you'd think that the dreaded activist judges of their nightmares are all liberals. Not so -- and the Supreme Court proved it beyond all doubt last year.

The case was Ledbetter v. Goodyear. Lilly Ledbetter worked from 1979 until 1998 at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in Gadsden, Ala., and was paid less than male workers. After finding out about it, she sued as a victim of gender discrimination and justice seemed to be done. Although the company tried to say her unequal pay was due to performance, a jury ruled in her favor and awarded her damages and back pay.

Justice was undone when a federal appeals court overturned the award and the Supreme Court followed suit. Ms. Ledbetter found out why she could not prevail: She did not have the X-ray vision necessary to pierce closed doors and see that her male colleagues were being paid more than she was.

That's what it amounts to anyway. The coldly legalistic reason was that the law said she had to file a claim within 180 days of an act of discrimination, which in her case had started many years before with cumulative effect. In the Supreme Court, the usual conservative suspects in the 5-4 majority came up with a perfectly ridiculous Catch-22 that confounded the intent of Congress: If you are a woman who doesn't know you are being discriminated against, you can't make a complaint later because you aren't making a complaint now, even if past discrimination leaves you with a legacy of disadvantage.

They didn't have to rule as they did. With just a smidgen of common sense added to their constipated reading of the law, with a tiny dash of understanding for the reality of workplaces where workers frequently don't know their colleagues' pay, they might have come up with a decision that was not, in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's biting dissent, "parsimonious."

Fortunately, Congress can have the last word on this display of conservative judicial activism. Last July, the House of Representatives passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, HR 2831, which would correct the alleged defect in the law the justices identified. Tomorrow it is likely to be considered by the Senate.

In the year that a woman is running for president, we hope that Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Bob Casey will join a majority of their colleagues of both parties in striking a blow against the 19th century thinking that prevailed in this case. It won't help Lilly Ledbetter but it will help other Lilly Ledbetters who experience unfairness.