UC Berkeley to Pay $113,000 in Bias Case

Settling the last in a string of sex discrimination complaints, UC Berkeley has agreed to pay $113,000 to a former art history professor who alleged that she was denied tenure because of her gender.

Maribeth Graybill will receive back wages and expenses as part of a settlement between the university and the U.S. Department of Justice, which pursued the complaint--and filed a federal lawsuit in her behalf.

The settlement, said Assistant Atty. Gen. Deval L. Patrick, “paints a clear picture for all employers that the Justice Department will not tolerate discrimination.”

UC Berkeley officials, who denied any wrongdoing, said Tuesday that they settled the lawsuit to avoid lengthy, costly litigation.

“The university denies discrimination in the case,” said Sheila O’Rourke, UC Berkeley’s academic compliance affairs officer. “There was a determination that her academic qualifications did not meet the standards for tenure.”

But the Justice Department found sufficient merit to file a lawsuit alleging that the university violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it denied tenure to Graybill.

The lawsuit, filed along with the settlement in U.S. District Court in San Francisco this week, also accused the university of retaliating against her for opposing the school’s employment practices.

Graybill worked as an assistant professor of art history from 1981 to 1990, and was dismissed after she was denied tenure. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found reasonable cause that she had suffered discrimination and forwarded the case to Justice Department lawyers.

Graybill, now a tenured professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, said the Justice Department’s decision to pursue the case and extract a settlement is vindication of her work at Berkeley.

“The impact of this ruling takes on special significance because it is the last in a series of cases brought by women against Berkeley,” Graybill said. “And every one of us won in one way or another.”

After other legal challenges to university decisions, Margaretta M. Lovell won tenure in the art history department in 1992, Eleanor Swift won tenure at Boalt Hall Law School in 1989, and Jenny Harrison was awarded tenure in the mathematics department in 1993.

In addition, UC Berkeley last year paid $1 million to settle a claim by architect Marcy Wang that she was denied tenure because she is an Asian woman.

Graybill said her case and others are remarkable at a university known for its exemplary sensitivity on most racial and gender issues.

“What is hard for all of us to believe is that discrimination can occur in a place with that kind of reputation,” she said. “But the EEOC said it did.”