Carolyn Aiello was caught in a constitutional transition. Living in the Bay Area of California, Aiello supported herself as a hairdresser. But her livelihood was (temporarily) cut off when complications associated with her pregnancy required her to take a medical leave on June 21, 1972. The doctors discovered that Aiello had an ectopic pregnancy and performed surgery to terminate her pregnancy. Although she would ultimately return to work on July 28, she could not afford the loss of even a month's income. Like millions of other Americans, Aiello applied for unemployment benefits on the basis of her physical disability – but, unlike most other applicants having serious even if temporary disabilities, her claim was denied. California's unemployment compensation program excluded from its coverage disability claims based on pregnancy.

This was a state discrimination affecting thousands of working women like Aiello. Represented by San Francisco civil rights attorney Wendy Webster Williams, Aiello and three other women sued the state to overturn this discrimination in its unemployment compensation law. Their argument was that the exclusion of pregnancy-based claims from the unemployment program violated the Equal Protection Clause. Speaking for a three-judge federal court, Judge Zirpoli ruled the exclusion unconstitutional – but the United States Supreme Court reversed. It held, in Geduldig v. Aiello (1974), that pregnancy-based exclusions are not subject to heightened equal protection scrutiny and that the California exclusion was a rational means for the state to tailor its program and, essentially, save money.