Closed Case
Gender Discrimination in Employment
Settled in 1982 for Arbitration Process and Injunctive Relief 

Dr. Shyamala Rajender, an assistant professor in chemistry at the University of Minnesota, filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) after she was denied placement into a tenure track position. Paul Sprenger, then a 31-year old junior partner in a business defense firm, took the case pro bono at the urging of the EEOC. Upon investigation, he found that no woman had been hired into a tenure track position or granted tenure at the University in the hard sciences and engineering departments over the previous 60 years.

The resultant case, filed in 1973, was novel in numerous respects. It was the first employment discrimination class action ever tried, and the United State District Court in Minnesota established the first class of female academic employees. During the eleven weeks of trial, Sprenger made then-novel use of statistical evidence to convince the Court that the University's hiring and tenure practices had an adverse impact against class members. The resultant Consent Decree established new hiring policies and procedures that the University follows to this day, and about 3,500 claimants received jobs, tenure and money damages valued at over $40 million. Sprenger received a fee award that included a "bonus" for quality of work three times his normal hourly rate and was the highest fee award in a civil rights case at the time.

More important for Sprenger and ultimately the firm, the case received tremendous attention from the media. As a result, in Sprenger's words, "the phone began to ring and never stopped."

Reported Decision:

• 546 F. Supp. 158 (D. Minn. 1982)