Yesterday the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the biggest work discrimination lawsuit in American history. The suit’s plaintiffs accuse Walmart of having discriminated against hundreds of thousands of women across the country for pay and for promotions. Walmart says the suit has too many aspects to be deemed a single class-action.

Even though the immediate stakes are very high for both the plaintiffs and the defendant in this case, the long-term ramifications of the case could be long lasting, particularly for future class-action lawsuits.

On Tuesday, Maine voters headed to the polls and reversed the state legislature's decision to permit gay marriage. Maine is the third state in the country where voters repealed a legislature-granted law allowing same-sex marriage, and the 31st state to ban gay marriage outright. We ask Columbia University law professor Suzanne Goldberg, director of the Gender and Sexuality Law Program, if this repeal is part of a larger national trend. We also speak with Jill Barkley, a resident of Portland, Me., who was planning to marry her partner next summer; and to Andrew McLean, a gay man in Portland, Me., who volunteered with Equality Maine.

Gay marriage has been a longtime wedge issue in the United States, but the pace of change has quickened in the last few months. Last month, Iowa and Vermont legalized same-sex marriage and last week, Maine became the fifth state to allow gay couples to wed; similar legislation is advancing in New Hampshire. Washington D.C. also got into the mix, voting last week to recognize same-sex marriages that have been performed in other parts of the United States. Joining us to talk about this latest round of legislation and to look ahead at whether this momentum could carry across the country is Suzanne Goldberg. She is a professor at Columbia Law School and the director of the Gender and Sexuality Law Program.