The numbers are real, and the problem couldn’t be more noticeable.
Data retrieved by The Jambar from the budget office at YSU indicates that female faculty members at the university are paid significantly less than their male counterparts — $15,400 less in fiscal year 2011.
Furthermore research conducted by the Office of Institutional Research at YSU paints an unsightly picture that can be seen nationwide, if you look hard enough.
According to the research, males made $11,000 more in base salaries than females over the past ten years.
That pay gap is smaller among tenured faculty, but males still made $9,186 more than their female colleagues last fiscal year.
To add insult to injury, the university is doing little to solve a problem that has troubled YSU and many other universities across the country.
Maybe the university is ignoring it because nobody has the guts or wherewithal to step up to the plate and voice their concerns, but whatever the reason, the gap must be tightened.
Two grievances were filed in the 1990s and another in 2004 and while some ground was made, another grievance surfaced in 2008. It led to a fat $675,000 paycheck to then General Counsel Sandra Denman, and boosts in pay to unfairly treated faculty.
Is this YSU’s plan for FY 2012? Cut a check and peddle another excuse?
While starting salaries are based on private sector comparison, YSU and Ohio’s other higher education institutions can’t shake the good-old chauvinism that drives inequity.
Ikram Khawaja, YSU provost and vice president for academic affairs, insisted that it’s not because of gender discrimination, but Julia Gergits, YSU Ohio Education Association president and English professor, isn’t falling for the administration’s misguided rhetoric.
“We are accepting [Khawaja’s] explanation that his decision in that case was not based on gender discrimination … but we didn’t accept that there isn’t discrimination on campus,” she said.
Call it what you will, but the numbers don’t lie. Strip away the summer pay, longevity, seniority and other variables, and women are still paid less.
Administrators and deans acknowledge the problem, and then quickly spew a list of excuses. You are all well aware, and it’s safe to say that if your salary was in question, you would be examining the reasons much more closely.
1 comments Anonymous Tue Nov 29 2011 11:54 Women are much more likely to work as part time professors. End of case.