The Burlington School District has reached a $475,000 settlement with a former female athletic director who accused the district of gender-based wage discrimination.
Jeanne Hulsen, who worked at Burlington High School for 22 years, told VTDigger in a telephone interview that she filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in 2020 after the school district redefined the athletic director position and hired a younger and less experienced man at a starting salary that dwarfed hers by more than $30,000.
After years of what felt like going through life with a wet blanket draped over, Hulsen, 65, of South Burlington, said the settlement brings validation and closure.
“There’s this sense of freedom now that it’s over,” she said.
According to the settlement, the lawsuit is dismissed with prejudice, and the school district will pay Hulsen $295,000 “in compensation for lost wages” and her lawyer $180,000 for legal costs.
John Franco, who represented Hulsen in the case, said they were scheduled to go to trial on Dec. 1. But both sides opted for mediation, which led to the settlement agreement dated Nov. 12.
While exhaustion was a factor in that decision, Franco said he found the case to be particularly egregious.
“Jeanne was by far the most exploited employee based upon gender wage discrimination that I’ve ever come across,” he said. “She got a fraction of what her damages were.”
She was originally seeking damages to the tune of almost $2 million, Franco said.
The district was prepared to go to trial, but the insurance carrier, which has ultimate settlement authority, made the decision to settle to avoid the cost of a trial, according to Russ Elek, spokesperson for the Burlington School District. The funds will be paid via insurance and the district will only pay the $5,000 deductible and any applicable payroll taxes, he added.
The settlement agreement “represents a compromise to avoid litigation” and further states that neither party “makes any admission concerning the strength or weakness of any claim or admits any liability therefore.”
The complaint came a year after the Burlington High School girls’ soccer team’s calls for gender pay equality went viral, receiving national attention.
At the time, Hulsen said, she was proud of their activism. But she said “it was very perplexing” given that she was “a prime example of that situation right in their backyard.”
It was also a time when she was among a very small number of athletic directors statewide who were women. She wasn’t a part of a union and received annual raises “almost without any discussion” or opportunity to negotiate. The amount was “typically lesser” than what people in bargaining units could secure, according to the lawsuit. Plus, the job grew immensely over those years, but the salary did not keep pace, she said.
“BSD provided significant support to the amazing student athletes involved in the Equal Pay movement, and we remain in full support of the cause,” Elek said in an email. “The vast majority of BSD wages are negotiated through bargaining units, a practice that has not changed since litigation began. Other wages are influenced by research, including regional comparisons. If we identify a pay discrepancy, we correct it as promptly as possible.”
In the civil complaint filed November 2020, Hulsen alleged that the Burlington School District violated the federal Equal Pay Act and the equal pay provisions of the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act, and sought “appropriate relief, including back pay, liquidated damages, prejudgment interest, plus attorney’s fees, and litigation costs.”
Hulsen worked in the school district for a starting salary of $30,000 in 1998 and said she drew $70,000 when she left in 2020. After 22 years, her position was redefined, and she was not rehired. The district instead hired a younger man with two years of work experience at a starting salary of $87,405.50 in August 2020, the complaint stated.
“Even adjusting Ms. Hulsen’s starting salary for inflation, Burlington School District paid her male successor a starting salary which was almost $39,700 higher in 2020 dollars,” the complaint stated.
