October 18, 2023

Vassar College Faces Lawsuit Alleging Decades-Long Gender Pay Gap

Vassar College, one of the Seven Sisters, has long been seen as a beacon of forward-thinking policies when it came to gender. But this rosy view of the college is now being contested by a lawsuit brought by former and current professors, who allege the college has systematically paid its male professors more for decades.

 

The suit, which is being brought by five tenured professors claims that not only did Vassar continuously pay male counterparts more, the college also delayed promotions and engaged in the use of a performance rating system that discriminated against female professors.

 

In salary data published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the ‘03-‘04 academic year saw women paid, on average, $7,770 less than male counterparts.The gap has only widened since then, to nearly $14,000 in the ‘21-‘22 academic year, a similar pay gap in higher education at large.

 

The suit has outraged many on campus, who believed that such a disparity could not happen at such a progressive institution. In responding to the suit and the subsequent student anger, the college’s president acknowledged an ongoing dispute between faculty and the college over salary raises which are governed by a faculty-led peer review process. She said that she respected the professors’ choice to take this dispute to the courts and that the institution had agreed to hiring an outside compensation analysis organization to review salaries. The plaintiffs’ complaint is available here.

Paid Maternity Leave Finds an Unlikely Champion, But Is That Enough?

January 8, 2021
Pregnancy Discrimination
Paid Family Leave
On the heels of some important wins for paid leave in the 2020 election, paid maternity leave has found a new supporter. One who you might not have expected: conservative co-host of The View Megan McCain. The challenge is, as Monica Hesse notes, “how we can speed up this process so that it doesn’t require every leave-denier to personally birth a child before they also get on board.”

Motivational Speaker Tony Robbins Sued over Covid-related Discrimination

December 29, 2020
No items found.
A new lawsuit, filed by an employee of the motivational speaker Tony Robbins, alleges that Robins’s company, Robbins Research International, along with Robbins and his wife Bonnie, discriminated against the employee who requested reasonable accommodations be met for her recovery from coronavirus.

Doctor’s Video Underscores How Structural Racism Permeates the Medical Profession

December 29, 2020
Race Discrimination
One of the most devastating forms in which structural race discrimination appears is in the worlds of medicine and health care where people of color, especially Black people are provided with inferior forms of care, which are often deadly.

Get In Touch

Knowing where to turn in legal matters can make a big difference. Contact our employment lawyers to determine if we can help you.