Recent Developments in Gender Discrimination Lawsuits Against Universities

• A former professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the university.

Linda Gagen was hired as an assistant professor of exercise science in 2002. In the lawsuit, she claims she received unwanted sexual advances from a senior faculty member. When she complained, no action was taken by the university, according to the lawsuit. Furthermore, Gagen states that the faculty member who had harassed her sat on the committee that decided if she were to be granted tenure and served to persuade other committee members that she was not worthy despite the fact that she had received unanimous favorable evaluations from outside the department. She left the university in 2009 after her application for tenure was declined.

• Amy Christoffersen, a former assistant track and field coach at Boise State University in Idaho received a $40,000 payment from the university resulting from the settlement of a gender discrimination lawsuit she had filed against the athletics director and the head track coach. The case had been scheduled to go to trial on July 11.

Christoffersen was hired in 1998 and demoted in 2007. Her contract was not renewed when it expired in 2009.