Officials at Princeton University have agreed to settle a case regarding pay inequities for 106 full current and former female professors as part of the conclusion of a nearly decade long federal investigation into pay disparities at the university. The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs initiated a review of the university’s compliance with federal standards of equal pay. Although the DoL temporarily suspended the investigation in 2016, it eventually found non-compliance between 2012 and 2014.
The university had fought against the ruling, claiming that the statistical model used by the DoL was flawed and arguing that the investigation and analysis did not reflect the exigencies of Princeton’s hiring and pay scales based on work performed. However, last month, Princeton officials agreed to the settlement, which means paying out nearly $1 million and committing to a comprehensive review of every department’s salaries and hiring practices over the next five years.
Other aspects of the agreement include training department chairs about pay equity and strengthening the university’s commitment to “enhance the pipeline” of advancing women candidates to full professorships.
While not anomalous, this settlement is uncommon as the federal government has been reticent to investigate or make rulings on university’s pay structures due the the myriad considerations related to a professor’s job duties, which is what Princeton argued initially, claiming that comparing the duties of, for example a physics professor to an English professor was not an appropriate one.
