Enrichetta Ravina, an assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School, has filed a federal lawsuit charging the university with gender discrimination and sexual harassment. A separate lawsuit was filed against the faculty member, who Dr. Ravina says harassed her.
Dr. Ravina joined the faculty at the business school in 2008. Her research focuses on how workers manage their retirement savings. She claims that a professor who was acting as a mentor and facilitated her research talked about sex in the workplace and made advances toward her. Dr. Ravina says that she complained to administrators at the business school but that these complaints were dismissed.
The lawsuit states that Dr. Ravina was placed on paid leave for the 2015-16 academic year. But the leave was later revoked and she was told the tenure process would begin on “an accelerated basis,” according to the suit. Dr. Ravina claims that this will make it extremely difficult for her to receive tenure. She is seeking $20 million in damages.
In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Ravina stated, “I think my story is awful, but my sense if that many women go through this. The school has failed me, and it might have failed other people as well.”
Dr. Ravina is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Torino in Italy. She earned a Ph.D. in economics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.