Another ex-dean joins UA pay bias suit

A second former female dean at the University of Arizona has joined a federal lawsuit that claims the women were underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars compared to their male colleagues.

Janice Cervelli, former dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, alleges the university refused to give her a single pay raise while she served as dean from 2008 to 2016.

During the last two years of her employment, she claims she earned $80,000 less per year on average than males who performed similar work.

Cervelli on Tuesday joined a lawsuit filed in January by Patricia MacCorquodale, former dean of the Honors College. MacCorquodale alleges that she was dramatically underpaid for two decades, and she was replaced by a male who made nearly $70,000 more than she did when university officials removed her as dean in 2016.

“Both of these outstanding female deans experienced significant pay disparities during the same period of employment. This is not a coincidence; this is how the University of Arizona discriminates against its female academic leaders,” said their attorney, David Sanford, in a statement.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District

Court, accuses the university of perpetuating “a culture that marginalizes, demeans and undervalues women.”

The suit claims that female deans at the UA earn less than male deans and are “virtually shut out of participation in the university’s Dean’s Council. They are further subjected to humiliating and demeaning treatment by the university’s predominantly male leadership.”

The regents, who oversee the state university system and are named as a defendant in the lawsuit, declined comment on the lawsuit in January. They did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Wednesday.

MacCorquodale, 67, is still employed by the university as a tenured professor in Women’s Studies.

Cervelli, 61, left the university in 2016 and is president of St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana.