Proposed settlement terms on behalf of women professors require three years of independent pay audits and new pay and promotion transparency measures; agreement is subject to court approval
Equal Rights Advocates (ERA) and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein announced today that Vassar College has agreed to terms for settling a class action lawsuit brought by women full professors alleging long-standing gender-based pay discrimination at the historically women’s college.
The proposed settlement, which must be approved by the court, will provide a $5 million settlement fund to compensate approximately 84 full professors for the alleged discrimination, and enhance transparency regarding decisions on pay, evaluation, and promotion over the next three years. In addition to the monetary fund, Vassar has agreed to several pay equity reforms in connection with the settlement, including:
- making transparent to full professors the methods and criteria Vassar uses to set compensation and to make promotion and performance evaluation decisions;
- commissioning annual pay equity audits of full professor compensation by an independent third-party consultant, sharing the model and results of that audit with Vassar’s Faculty Compensation Committee, and making pay adjustments based on the results, as needed; and
- reporting annually to Lieff Cabraser and ERA on its compliance with these commitments, including informing them of any revisions to relevant policies and providing summaries of the pay equity audit results.
The parties reached this settlement after years of both pre-litigation meetings and court filings during litigation, including Vassar’s unsuccessful attempts to dismiss the claims.
“This step reflects years of efforts by women faculty members at Vassar, first privately and then in court, to get Vassar to eliminate a gender-based pay gap of which the college has long been aware,” said Catherine Bendor, Director of Litigation at Equal Rights Advocates and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “Our clients worked hard to achieve justice not only for themselves and their colleagues, but for all future women professors. We hope the terms of the proposed settlement, and the experience of this lawsuit, will result in Vassar appropriately recognizing the contributions of all of its women faculty.”
“We are proud of our clients’ longstanding efforts to enhance Vassar as a leader on issues of gender equity. The settlement reflects their deep care for the institution and all of its stakeholders,” said Kelly Dermody, Partner in Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP., co-lead counsel for Plaintiffs and the Class.
Five current and former women full professors, Wendy Graham, Maria Höhn, Mia Mask, Cindy Schwarz, and Debra Zeifman, filed the class action lawsuit against Vassar in August 2023. They took on the litigation with overwhelming support from Class members, almost all of whom signed a joint statement in solidarity at the time the original complaint was filed, as well as from men full professors, women and men junior faculty, and a broad collection of students and alumni. The suit alleged that Vassar had known for years of a gender pay gap among its full professors and had not adequately addressed it, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State Equal Pay Law, and the New York State Human Rights Law.
In September 2024, U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel denied Vassar’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ equal pay claim under New York law, allowing the full case to proceed. The parties subsequently engaged in mediation, which helped produce the settlement.
A copy of the lawsuit is available here, and the statement of support signed by 36 women full professors is available here.