WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF SEXISM AND OPPRESSION? Female Professors Sue Vassar College, Alleging Gender-Based Salary Discrimination: Vassar, founded as one the country’s first women’s colleges, pays women 10% less, lawsuit says.
Five female professors at Vassar College filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging one of the oldest degree-granting institutions for women in the U.S. discriminates against female faculty by slow-walking their promotions and paying them less than their male peers.
The women filed the proposed class-action suit against the Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based college in federal court in New York after trying to work with the school for more than a decade to address the pay disparity, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs are asking for back pay to 2015 on behalf of all women currently or formerly employed by Vassar as full professors. They are also calling for a new system for evaluations and promotion.
During the 2021-2022 school year, male professors earned an average salary of $153,238 while female professors earned $139,322—or 10% less, according to the suit. The pay gap has ranged between 7.6% and 14.6% since 2003.
Representatives from Vassar couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Andrew Luna, executive director of institutional research at Austin Peay State University, who has researched faculty pay and gender gaps, said the difference could be explained by the distribution of men and women across disciplines. Business, science and technology faculty positions tend to pay more than faculty positions in the humanities, he said
Kelly Dermody, attorney for the plaintiffs, said that while the data in the lawsuit doesn’t take into account pay variation between disciplines, the plaintiffs, which include professors who teach African-American history, physics and psychological science, allege the pay gap is also present within departments.
The suit alleges women are paid less when they are hired and then promoted at a slower pace based on an biased and subjective evaluation process for compensation and promotion. The process includes peer reviews and student reviews. The average merit rating for female professors is 2.24; for men it is 2.41.
Obviously we need to shut the whole thing down until we figure out what’s going on.