Gender Bias Lawsuit

February 9, 2010
Chronicle of Higher Education

William Paterson U. Pays $1-Million to Settle Gender-Bias Lawsuit
By Robin Wilson

A lawyer for two female chemists says William Paterson University of New Jersey has agreed to pay more than $1-million to settle a gender-discrimination lawsuit in which the women allege that male professors in their department consistently treated them with "condescension and derision" and ran them out of the university.
The women now have tenure-track jobs on other campuses, but they contend that the discrimination they experienced at William Paterson slowed their careers and made their work lives miserable. A university spokesman said on Tuesday that he could not comment on the allegations or the settlement because "we do not discuss legal matters." But one of the professors who was named in the lawsuit called the charges "unfair."
The two women—Anita J. Brandolini and Amber Charlebois—were hired as tenure-track professors by William Paterson in 2002. According to the women's lawyer, Samuel J. Samaro, the chemistry department had had no other tenured or tenure-track women since the 1990s. The complaint, which was filed in 2007, says that as soon as the two women started working there, two male professors in the department made it known "that they did not respect female scientists and women were not welcome in the department."
The men named in the suit are Gary J. Gerardi, who was chairman of chemistry when the women were hired and has worked at William Paterson since 1977, and Gurdial M. Sharma, a professor of chemistry who has worked there since 1980.
Accusations of Being Silenced
The suit says the men told the women to be quiet or talked over them at meetings and yelled at them in the department's hallways and classrooms. The women also allege that they were denied the ability to vary their own course content, were assigned larger classes than their male colleagues, were denied the instruments they needed to conduct research, and were given clean-up tasks in laboratories that were not assigned to male professors.
When the two women complained to administrators about the men's behavior, administrators sympathized with them, says the complaint, but did nothing to change the situation.
In October of 2005, the university informed Ms. Brandolini that she would not be reappointed the following year. According to Mr. Samaro, the university said Ms. Brandolini was not adept at using instruments in the laboratory and did not do a good job of teaching higher-level courses. Ms. Brandolini left William Paterson and is now an assistant professor of chemistry at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
After Ms. Brandolini was informed that her appointment would not be renewed, Ms. Charlebois filed a complaint with the university in December 2005, alleging that the two men in her department had created a hostile work environment. But nothing changed after she filed the complaint, the lawsuit contends, and Ms. Charlebois left for a tenure-track job at Fairleigh Dickinson University in April 2006. She later received a letter from William Paterson, saying her allegations of a hostile environment were not substantiated.
While Mr. Samaro says the university acknowledged that Professors Gerardi and Sharma could be brusque, he says it argued that the way the two men treated the women had nothing to do with their gender. But in December, says Mr. Samaro, the university agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying each of the women $250,000, and this month it agreed to pay Mr. Samaro $541,000 in lawyer's fees.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Gerardi said the university had told him not to comment on the settlement. "I feel very strongly that I want to explain the situation, because it's very unfair," he said, "but the university feels it's best we don't say anything."
Mr. Sharma did not respond to attempts to contact him.