[B]URLINGTON — A Chittenden Superior Court jury began hearing testimony this week in a gender discrimination case brought against the University of Vermont by a former employee.
Cynthia Ruescher, an information technology specialist, filed suit against the university in December 2014, claiming nine violations of Vermont’s Fair Employment Practices Act and other laws.
A grievance she had filed earlier with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission led to the lawsuit. Four months later she was fired from her job, a move that the university defended by claiming it was connected with a budget shortfall.
The jury will be asked to consider whether the university is guilty of gender discrimination, allowing a hostile work environment, illegal retaliation, breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, negligent hiring and/or unjust enrichment.
In September 2017, Judge Robert Mello dismissed Ruescher’s claim of unequal pay. She had alleged in her initial complaint that the university had “paid (her) less than male comparators for work that required equal skill, effort and responsibility performed under similar working conditions.”
Mello ruled that “UVM has offered legitimate reasons for hiring Ruescher and McLaughlin (a male employee) at different salaries.” The judge wrote: “They were hired into different positions, and had different levels of skills and experiences.”
The other eight claims are what’s at issue in this week’s proceedings.
Ruescher worked in the university’s Enterprise Application Services starting in 2001, providing internal technical assistance to other departments. After attempting to address concerns about pay disparity in meetings with her supervisor and the university’s human resources department, Ruescher filed several complaints with the EEOC, the federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws in the workplace.
A June 2014 investigation by the agency culminated in a “right to sue,” according to court documents.
Ruescher alleges that ever since her initial attempts in 2012 to discuss pay disparity, her supervisor and other department directors retaliated by diverting work, hiring a new employee in a comparable role at a higher salary, defaming her and denying her training opportunities.
“(Ruescher) is not being given the level of work and responsibility she had been given before she started to complain about the salary disparity and gender discrimination,” her lawyer, Siobhan McCloskey, said in the initial 2014 complaint.
A university spokesperson said in an email last week that the claim was unfounded.
“We believe the jury will hear evidence on the remaining claims that Ms. Ruescher was treated fairly based upon her professional skills and job performance, not her gender,” said Enrique Corredera, executive director of university communications.
Mello earlier denied several motions by UVM attorneys to exclude evidence in the trial that had been entered for the equal pay charges that had been dismissed. One of the motions was to omit evidence that a former supervisor, Keith Kennedy, had viewed pornography on a work computer.
McCloskey argued that although the supervisor had not watched pornography in front of Ruescher or other employees, he had created a hostile work environment by “disregarding any responsibility he had … for keeping such gender-based hostility and discrimination out of his department.”
In a press release, McCloskey also alleged that Ruescher’s firing in 2015 was linked to her complaints about pay disparity. The lawyer also pointed out that the trial coincided with Equal Pay Day, which was April 10.
Corredera said in his email: “Ms. Ruescher’s position was eliminated as a result of a budget cut, not related in any way to her complaints, which, of course, she had every right to assert.”
Ruescher is seeking back pay and other damages.