Penn State is set to pay $703,742 in back wages and interest to resolve allegations the university paid dozens of women less than their male colleagues.
A compliance review conducted by the U.S. Labor Department found the university paid 65 women employees less than men holding similar positions in facilities operations and maintenance, extension education and senior administration jobs.
That included female faculty in research professor roles at the College of Engineering and the Applied Research Laboratory, as well as female faculty in teaching professor roles at the College of Agricultural Sciences and the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications.
The review began in August 2021. The Labor Department said its allegations of gender pay discrimination dated back to at least July 2020.
“Penn State must make certain its employment practices comply with all federal law, including those that seek to eliminate gender-based barriers to equal employment,” said Michele Hodge, the acting director of the federal contract compliance program office.
Penn State did not admit any violations in the 22-page settlement, which was signed Monday by university President Neeli Bendapudi. Payouts to the dozens of underpaid women range from $2,432 to $47,241.
Suzanne Adair, Penn State’s associate vice president for equal opportunity and access, said in a statement released Wednesday that the alleged violations that were found were “unintentional pay discrepancies.”
“While the number of affected employees was small relative to the overall campus population, the University takes such matters seriously and worked diligently with the government to reach a resolution that fairly compensated the affected women,” said Adair, who led the university’s participation in the review. “We appreciate the government’s efforts and are pleased that the audit identified the pay anomalies so that corrective action could be taken.”
The university must also analyze the gender and race neutrality of its pay policies for all employees by conducting a compensation disparity analysis, the Labor Department wrote in a statement.
Penn State received more than $178 million in payments from federal contracts last year.
“Employers that hold federal contracts must provide all employees with equal employment opportunities and audit their employment processes to make certain no barriers to equal employment exist,” said Samuel B. Maiden, the mid-Atlantic regional director of the federal contract compliance programs office.
In a press release, Penn State touted its recent $60 million investment in what it described as a compensation modernization initiative to better align staff salaries with market rates and equitable pay practices.
The university also said the Labor Department identified only 65 women out of the nearly 14,000 women working on the campus whom it believed were underpaid relative to similarly situated men.
The agency’s review also did not identify any violations with respect to race or ethnicity-based pay equity, the university wrote.
Those who believe they may be affected by the settlement can check their eligibility online at dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/classmembers.
