Five female professors from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie have put their names on a class action lawsuit filed against the college. The lawsuit alleges that Vassar engaged in a longstanding pattern of pay discrimination against female professors. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Vassar campus. Image courtesy Vassar College.The named plaintiffs are: Professor of English Wendy Graham; Professor Emerita of History Maria Höhn; Professor of Film Mia Mask; Professor of Physics Cindy Schwarz; and Professor of Psychological Science Debra Zeifman.
They are represented by the Manhattan-based law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and Equal Rights Advocates, which is located in San Francisco.
The lawsuit alleges pervasive and long-standing gender-based disparities in pay between Vassar”™s male and female full professors. It charges that Vassar has known for years that it unlawfully pays men more than women, and has for years refused to adequately address the discrimination.
“Vassar also systematically delays the promotion of female professors, causing women to advance more slowly through faculty ranks at the college,” the lawsuit says, “The college”™s performance evaluation system, too, is marred by discrimination. Vassar”™s College-wide compensation, promotion, and evaluation policies, while facially neutral, have therefore had a disparate impact on women. These policies must be reformed, to ensure fairness and gender equity moving forward.”
The lawsuit charges that despite publicly claiming a storied role in the movement for gender equality, Vassar has long and privately been underpaying its female professors. It cites published data about Vassar’s average salaries reflecting a gender pay disparity for full professors at Vassar in every year for the last two decades.
“Most troublingly, these data reflect a widening of the gender pay gap at Vassar over time: the disparity was 7.6% (its smallest) in the 2003-2004 academic year; grew to as high as 13.4% in the 2010-2011 academic year; and remained at 10.0% in the 2021-2022 academic year (the last year of available data),” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says that since at least 2008 and consistently since then female professors have advised Vassar’s administration of their concerns about unequal pay.
“Instead of remedying its gender pay gap, Vassar responded by decreasing the level of transparency about faculty salaries, in an apparent attempt to mask its decades-long pattern of underpaying of women,” the lawsuit alleges.
Attorney Kelly Dermody of Lieff Cabraser said that the plaintiffs are leaders in their fields and highly regarded by both their contemporaries and their students.
“For too long, Vassar has refused to equitably value their contributions to the college,” Dermody said. “We hope this case will prompt Vassar to finally live up to the storied role in the movement for gender equality that it so publicly claims.”
Anthony Friscia, chairman of the board of trustees at Vassar, issued a statement saying that he regrets that the professors have filed the lawsuit and that the college believes it has been fair and equitable with its faculty members. He said that the college wants to resolve the issue and values the faculty members.
