Texas Law School Professor Alleges Age and Gender Discrimination
Piatt says she taught her last class on April 24, and she was scheduled to give her last final exam on April 28.
A full-time instructor at the San Antonio law school since January 1999, Piatt alleges in a charge of discrimination she filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division that St. Mary's University notified her a year ago that her contract would terminate on May 31, the end of the 2008-2009 academic year.
In the charge, which Piatt filed in November 2008, she alleges her belief that St. Mary's law school has discriminated against her because of her age and gender. She is 57 years old.
"If you're an older female at St. Mary's, you're at risk," Piatt alleges in an interview.
On Jan. 23, the university filed its response to the EEOC, according to an April 2 letter to an EEOC investigator from Piatt.
As alleged in her charge of discrimination, a younger instructor who is less experienced than Piatt was moved to a long-term contract. She also alleges in the charge that St. Mary's law school has retained a male instructor with less seniority than she has and has hired less qualified males on tenure track, while her contract is not being renewed.
"My teaching, research and service have all been exemplary," Piatt alleges in the charge.
In an interview, Piatt says. "There's never been any kind of disciplinary action taken against me."
But, as alleged in the charge of discrimination, Piatt believes St. Mary's law school may have decided not to renew her contract as a retaliatory action. She alleges a belief that St. Mary's retaliated against her because her husband Bill Piatt, former dean of the law school, filed a charge of discrimination against the school with the EEOC on April 26, 2007. The basis of Bill Piatt's charge of discrimination, according to his wife's filing with the EEOC, was that St. Mary's law school removed him as dean and from a prestigious professorship "because he had opposed discrimination against St. Mary's University female African American faculty members and prospective faculty members, and he opposed discrimination against minority students and applicants."
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