No you sick bastard, this isn't some salacious sexual trist! The college is run by women.
Elizabeth is the President. Sonya is the Dean of Admission. Angela is Dir of Admin. Marrianne Dean of Strategic Planning. Shay is the General Counsel. William is the Dean of the Faculty, but I think he identifies as a she.
The point I'm making is that how can all these women throw other women under the bus? I'm outraged.
I bet they're going to claim that more men teach STEM classes that command higher salaries in the marketplace, which while being factually accurate is patently racist. Because I say so!
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
By Douglas Belkin, WSJ
Updated Aug. 30, 2023 4:09 pm ET
Vassar was founded in 1861 and was an early proponent of women’s education.
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.
The Vassar board of trustees defended its salary practices in a letter posted on the school website and signed by the board’s chair, Anthony Friscia.
“Vassar believes it pays its faculty fairly and equitably and has complied with the law,” Friscia wrote. “Faculty salaries are set by a faculty-led, peer-review process, per Vassar’s governance structure.”
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
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you expect the lawsuit will play out? Join the conversation below.
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.
A group of 35 female full professors and emeriti at Vassar signed a letter of support for the suit in which they said they share the grievances of the five named plaintiffs.
“The College has known for many years that it has unlawfully paid men more than women, but it has for years rejected our overtures and refused to address this discrimination in any meaningful or substantive way. We are therefore compelled to voice our disapproval,” the letter says.
Vassar was founded in 1861 as an all-women’s school and costs about $80,000 a year to attend. It began admitting men in 1969 and is one of the “seven sisters,” a group of liberal-arts colleges in the Northeast that were among the earliest proponents of women’s education.
“That makes this an especially troubling case, because you would think that a school that has such a storied history of advancing women’s equality and advancing female leadership would be at the forefront on gender pay equity,” Dermody said.
Comments