UPenn Professor to Get Sex Bias, Retaliation Trial Over Tenure

The University of Pennsylvania may have discriminated against a female professor based on sex when it denied her tenure, including by not taking fair account of her child-care leave, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled.

And Catherine Veikos may have faced retaliation when the university revoked her teaching position and again denied her tenure the following year, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.

The court cited evidence that could refute the nondiscriminatory reasons given for the denial of Veikos’ tenure application in 2011.

According to the university, external reviewers and faculty members questioned the quality and quantity of Veikos’ scholarship.

But Penn’s reasons for the 2011 denial changed over time, Judge Joshua D. Wolson said Tuesday.

The explanation initially was that Veikos’ body of work wasn’t substantial enough, the judge said. But the university “began to emphasize” the allegedly deficient quality of Veikos’ work when it realized that a professor who opposed her tenure hadn’t told the external reviewers that Veikos’ probationary period had been extended under Penn’s child-care policies, Wolson said.

There’s also evidence of divergent assessments of her tenure qualifications and divergent views among the faculty members during the tenure-review process, the judge said.

The court additionally cited procedural irregularities in the review and voting processes.

The review-process irregularities also included external reviewers not being told that a publisher had accepted Veikos’ book for publication, it said. The voting process irregularities included one professor anonymously changing his vote to “no” and lobbying against Veikos’ candidacy during a re-vote despite telling her he wouldn’t do so, the court said.

The close timing would allow a jury to find retaliation in the revocation of an offer for a one-year teaching position Penn extended to Veikos in June 2011, Wolson said.

The offer was made June 8 and revoked June 30. In between, Veikos sent a letter to a professor and a dean complaining of discrimination in her 2011 tenure denial, the judge said.

There’s also evidence the dean “chastised” Veikos for her complaint and told her it “changed everything,” the court said.

The same and other evidence could further prove retaliation in the denial of tenure to Veikos when she was considered again in 2012, Wolson said.

The judge admonished the university for arguing that sex bias couldn’t be shown in the 2011 tenure denial because some faculty members were “mothers with children” like Veikos.

That fact “sheds no light on whether anyone” discriminated against Veikos, the judge said.

Console Mattiacci Law LLC represents Veikos. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP represents Penn.

The case is Veikos v. Trs. of the Univ. of Pa., E.D. Pa., No. 2:20-cv-04408, 1/11/22.