Lyon v. Temple University of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education

543 F. Supp. 1372, 30 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1030, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1111, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13972, 31 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 33,545
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 30, 1982
DocketCiv. A. 79-409
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 543 F. Supp. 1372 (Lyon v. Temple University of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lyon v. Temple University of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education, 543 F. Supp. 1372, 30 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1030, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1111, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13972, 31 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 33,545 (E.D. Pa. 1982).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

SHAPIRO, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, male professors at Temple University (“Temple”), allege that Temple, university president Marvin Wachman, 1 and the American Association of University Professors (“AAUP”) have jointly and willfully discriminated against them on the basis of sex by paying them lower salaries than those paid to female professors of less or equal educational qualifications and/or experience. Plaintiffs originally charged defendants with violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d); the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1871, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985 and 1986; the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, 43 P.S. § 951 et seq.; and the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment, Article I, § 28 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Plaintiff Robert Lyon also claimed a conspiracy among the defendants to inflict emotional distress upon him in violation of Pennsylvania law.

On January 15, 1981, we dismissed the Equal Pay Act, § 1985(3) and § 1986 claims against the AAUP, 507 F.Supp. 471 (E.D. Pa. 1981), because the Equal Pay Act does not create a private right of action against a union, and cannot be the basis for § 1985(3) or § 1986 claims. Defendants now move for summary judgment as to all remaining counts.

The complaint alleges that the 1973-1976 collective bargaining agreement between Temple and AAUP included a clause, Article III, Paragraph E, which provided for the redressment of existing wage inequities based on race or sex for faculty members at *1374 Temple. The purpose of Article III, Paragraph E was “to identify and correct any existing faculty salary inequities based on sex or race” (¶ 19) and “(1) to develop a comprehensive system for determining any internal inequities affecting women or minority faculty members; (2) to guide and advise departmental faculties, chairpersons and deans on redressing any such inequities; and (3) to hear appeals from persons who are dissatisfied with redressment decisions of departmental faculties, chairpersons and deans.” (¶ 18). Pursuant to this provision, the faculty of the various schools and colleges at Temple reviewed the salaries of females and minority faculty members and awarded increases to those found to be entitled to this type of redressment. Male faculty who were not members of a minority were not eligible for these salary increases under Article III, Paragraph E.

Plaintiffs claim the implementation of Article III, Paragraph E, resulted in substantial discrepancies in salaries between plaintiffs and certain females in their departments; these women are alleged to be equally or less qualified or to have less experience than plaintiffs. For example, plaintiff Lyon alleges that he was hired at Temple in 1957 and has been a tenured professor since 1963 but as of September 1, 1978 he was earning approximately $3,200 less than a female in his department who was hired in 1967 and promoted to associate professor in 1971. Plaintiffs Lebofsky, Thornton and Macri have alleged similar discrepancies in salary when compared with females within their departments.

I. TEMPLE’S MOTION 2

A. The Equal Pay Act Claim

The Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) forbids wage inequality based on the sex of the employees. Enacted in 1963, it provides:

No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.

29 U.S.C. § 206(d)(1).

For the purpose of this motion, Temple concedes that, because of their sex, certain female employees receive higher salaries than their male plaintiff counterparts. Temple’s Reply Brief at 4. The question is whether these wage inequities are justified as affirmative action permitted by United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193, 99 S.Ct. 2721, 61 L.Ed.2d 480 (1979). It is contended that seeming violations of the EPA are excused as necessary to remedy past discrimination against female professional employees.

In Weber, the Supreme Court decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., 3 did not bar *1375 an employer and union from voluntarily agreeing to a “race-conscious affirmative action” plan in order to expand the number of skilled black craftworkers in its workforce. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. had entered into an agreement with the United Steelworkers of America that set black craftworker hiring goals for each Kaiser plant in accordance with the percentage of blacks in the respective local labor forces. To reach these goals, Kaiser agreed to set aside one-half of the openings in each plant’s training program until the desired percentage of skilled craftworkers for each plant was reached. 443 U.S. at 197, 99 S.Ct. at 2724. Plaintiffs contended, and the district court found, that the plan resulted in black employees receiving training instead of white employees with greater seniority, and that this constituted discrimination prohibited under Title VII. Id. at 199-200, 99 S.Ct. at 2725-2726.

The Court held that Title VII does not ban race-conscious affirmative action plans per se. Reviewing the legislative history of the Act, it concluded that “Congress did not intend to limit traditional business freedom to such a degree as to prohibit all voluntary, race-conscious affirmative action.” Id. at 207, 99 S.Ct. at 2729. Without defining the line between permissible and impermissible affirmative action, the court held the plan at issue lawful because it did not “unnecessarily trammel the interests of the white employees.” Id. at 208, 99 S.Ct. at 2729.

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543 F. Supp. 1372, 30 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1030, 25 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 1111, 1982 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13972, 31 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 33,545, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lyon-v-temple-university-of-the-commonwealth-system-of-higher-education-paed-1982.