After ten years—and nine months—a landmark victory was won by women in the City University of New York. On December 20, 1973, they brought a class action suit charging their employer with thirteen counts of discrimination. The consent decree became final on September 10, 1984. The University will make amends through a fund amounting to $7 ½ million.
The named plaintiffs (Lelia Melani and twenty-two other women faculty, as of an amended complaint dated May, 1978) initially chose the arduous legal route because other paths failed. In 1972, for instance, a special commission appointed by the Chancellor of the university published its report documenting myriad examples of discrimination against women throughout the nineteen campuses and in the administration of the university. The commission’s findings were ignored, its research methodology attacked and its recommendations debunked.
Consequently, the aggrieved faculty chose to enter the federal courts in search of relief under the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Among the charges the women brought forth were complaints regarding inequitable salaries; initial appointments at levels lower than male peers; discriminatory treatment in tenure and promotion decisions; unfair maternity practices; teaching schedules that burdened women with heavier loads and worse time slots than men received; exclusion from college governance; inequitable pension plans; different criteria for appointment and retention than men’s; and reprisals against women who testified publicly about discrimination.
The plaintiffs obtained the services of Judith Vladeck, [Esq.] who labored without fee over the decade. Nonetheless, the costs were staggering for both plaintiffs and defendant. Ultimately, of course, the defendant’s expenses were absorbed in the general university budget. The plaintiffs were forced to develop skills as fund-raisers.
The class that was certified was permitted to sue for damages from December 20, 1970, onwards. It represented currently employed women, formerly employed women, and women denied employment on instructional staff lines. After years of negotiation ordered by Judge Lee Gagliardi of the Southern District, Federal Court, the parties settled a number of grievances through negotiation and went to trial in June, 1980, on the issue of salary differentials. Salary discrimination had remained the intractable issue. Resisting out-of-court settlement, the university insisted it did not practice intentional sex discrimination in that area. Some of the other issues were resolved because of Supreme Court decisions, notably on pension inequity, through implementation of affirmative action guidelines, and some through negotiation.
The university policy which required that a woman report her pregnancy immediately to her chairman evaporated under pressure of this suit. Unfortunately, many women had already suffered the consequences of motherhood—they lost their consecutive count toward tenure. (In the past, a handful had gotten away with hiding under tent dresses until winter break or summer vacation.)
The trial on the salary question pitted statisticians against each other, revealing the usual problems that arise when quantitative data is applied to clarify qualitative questions. Naturally the university’s research experts rejected the plaintiffs claim of salary discrimination. CUNY, the court was told, was (and is) a unionized university, and thus, salaries were determined by contractual agreement. A university spokesman insisted that he had never seen a case of a woman hired at a lower salary than a man, if her qualifications were equal. Moreover, in the words of another university speaker, educational institutions of higher learning cannot be judged by the same criteria as other organizations. Titles do not necessarily reflect the actual duties performed, and personnel decisions are made by peer review, not by superiors in an organizational table.
A multiple regression analysis was run by Dr. Mark R. Killingworth, an economist from Rutgers University for the plaintiffs. Without here detailing the factors he plugged into his computer, Killingworth found a salary inequity averaging $1,750 in favor of male faculty. The judge eventually agreed with the plaintiffs’ arguments and the university was found “guilty” of discrimination in matters of salary.
By the terms of the final judgment, a total fund of $7,500,000 will be allocated to compensate presently employed women, formerly employed women, and women denied appointment since 1970. Under the guidance of a special master, women’s claims will be evaluated, accorded “points” depending on the specific hardship, and a sum will be allocated to each, once her claim is up held and her point count tallied. A special announcement in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education appearing in mid-October, 1984, provided information for potential claimants. Women can also write to Vladeck, Waldman, Elias, and Engelhard, PC, 1501 Broadway, New York, NY.10036 (212-354-8330) for information.
Included in the settlement is an allocation the university will use to develop women’s research, although its precise form has yet to be decided. The Chancellor will also establish a university wide oversight committee to monitor compliance.
The university will not appeal the decision despite a widespread belief that persists among many administrators and some faculty that salary discrimination never existed—at least in the 1970s. Due to the nature of the judge’s decision and the protocol of court procedure, appeals would be immensely costly to the university, since they could only be carried out after individual cases were decided and awards were made. The university in an appeal would bear the onus of proving that it did not discriminate. Beyond financial cost, appeals would tear apart an already stained fabric of human relations within CUNY and the new Chancellor, Joseph Murphy, wants to go forth with his fresh agenda, free from the weight of a class action suit, which he inherited.
A lawsuit of this nature is fraught with problems. The plaintiffs had to sue the entire university entity which, in turn, had to be defended by its non-teaching central administration and by counsel from the City of New York. Here were a set of lawyers arguing that male faculty—many of whom they’d never met—did not discriminate against female colleagues. Clearly, if the affected women could have directly sued each departmental and college personnel committee, purists would have been happier. Such an approach, however, was impossible. The individual plaintiff would have been hopelessly exposed and probably blacklisted in her discipline. Individual department committees would have invoked the holy rites of confidentiality. Unless a woman faculty member had in writing from a chairman: “you were denied tenure be cause you are female,” such cases would have been useless.
The settlement will not make every one happy. It came too late for hundreds of women lost to academia in the great seventies shrinkage. But the case will provide a model for others seeking redress of grievances where the institutional framework refuses to admit that its cultural patrimony operates as an exclusionary barrier.
Sandi E. Cooper is Professor of History at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.
