September-October 2000

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Concerns Raised About Fair Pay on Campus

A study analyzing salaries at the University of Cincinnati for the 1999–2000 academic year has revealed that women faculty at the university earn significantly less than their male counterparts. In New York and Michigan, issues of pay equity have found their way onto court dockets.

"Fair pay on campus continues to be of concern to many faculty members," says Mary Gibson, chair of the AAUP’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Academic Profession. "From producing studies on campus, to bringing legal action, professors often take the lead in addressing the issue of salary inequity."

The University of Cincinnati study, commissioned by the university’s AAUP chapter, looked at the salaries of 1,328 faculty members in all colleges of the university; it was controlled for the effects of experience, seniority, educational attainment, race, rank, and academic department. Robert Toutkoushian, the University of New Hampshire economist who conducted the study, reports that women faculty members at the University of Cincinnati earn from 2.83 to 4.85 percent less than men in comparable positions.

In New York, Janice Anderson, a tenured professor of communications at the State University of New York at New Paltz, has brought suit against her institution, asserting that university officials knowingly paid her less than male faculty members of a similar rank in spite of her superior qualifications, more accomplished record, and heavier workload. She alleges, among other claims, that the state violated the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) in its treatment of her.

The state initially argued that the sovereign immunity clause of the Eleventh Amendment protected it from EPA claims. But a trial court found, and the federal appellate court affirmed, that the university is not immune from such claims. In January the U.S. Supreme Court returned the case to the lower courts for further consideration.

The AAUP filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Anderson because it fears that exempting public entities, such as SUNY, from individual EPA claims will impair the ability of professors to protect themselves from wage discrimination.

In another recent pay-equity lawsuit, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) v. Eastern Michigan University, the EEOC alleged that Eastern Michigan University violated the EPA by hiring Pamela Speelman at a lower starting salary than newly appointed male faculty members who were in the same department and who had responsibilities similar to hers. The lawsuit further claimed that Speelman, who was hired in 1991, continued to receive a lower salary than did male professors who were appointed after her. The EEOC filed the lawsuit at the request of the university’s AAUP chapter.

In April EMU settled the suit by agreeing to raise Speelman’s salary to the level of her most highly reimbursed colleague, to pay $100,000 in compensatory damages, and to post public notice that the university supports the EPA.