EEOC Sides With Client Professor Lucy Marsh in Equal Pay Case

September 1. 2015

For Immediate Release
Sep 1, 2015

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Monday, August 31, 2015 that it has found evidence, after a two year investigation, that the University of Denver violated the federal Equal Pay Act by paying women professors at the Sturm College of Law less than their male counterparts. The EEOC also found that this discrimination was intentional over the last three years, after the university became aware of the disparity and refused to address it.

The EEOC finding follows a determined crusade by Professor Marsh to expose and remedy pay discrimination at the law school. Marsh, a nationally respected legal scholar, has taught at the law school since 1973 and has been a full professor since 1982. She is paid $109,000 a year and the median salary for a full professor is $149,000.

Professor Marsh filed the charge against the law school in July 2013 after learning that she was paid significantly less than male colleagues with far fewer years of tenure performing substantially equal work. Professor Marsh also brought the charge on behalf of female professors after the university released an internal memo revealing a pattern and practice of pay discrimination harming female law professors for decades. Among other issues, the university will have to resolve the persistent issue of pay secrecy at the school, or the EEOC could pursue a class action lawsuit.

The Denver Post covered the news of the EEOC’s decision with a front page story. You can read it online, or you can watch video of a news segment that appeared on 9News in Denver. You can also read more at the National Law Journal and Above the Law.