FAMU Law School Sued by Professor

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Jennifer Smith, a law professor at the Florida A&M University Law School, has filed a lawsuit against the institution, according to The Tampa Tribune.

She claims salary inequities, retaliation and discrimination in her lawsuit, which was filed in Leon County circuit court last week. Smith was hired in 2004 as an associate professor. The complaint states that it was filed in Tallahassee because that is where the school is headquartered.

  

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Eight violations of federal and state law for equal pay and gender discrimination are mentioned in the suit against the school. She is asking for a promotion to full professor, unspecified damages, attorney fees and other relief.

According to the complaint, the law school “consistently hired men at considerably higher rates than women,” with male associate professors “paid considerably more” than females.

The complaint said that Smith was granted tenure in 2010, but has been rejected for promotion to full professor since then.

According to the complaint, an administrator ‘sabotaged’ her promotion by putting negative recommendations in her personnel files in place of positive ones. The administrator called other officials at the school to prevent promotions.

Smith claims that the treatment was done in retaliation for her request to public records about professor-pay information.

Smith said she filed a workplace-violence complaint against the same administrator. She said the administrator “made some threatening comments about her.”

The complaint quotes a report from the ABA in September of 2012 about the law school that cites concerns from faculty about an “inhospitable environment for women, lesbians and gay faculty members.”