SAN JOSE — A former Evergreen Faculty District superintendent has been awarded roughly $2 million after a federal courtroom discovered the district had “considerably underpaid its first feminine superintendent.”
Kathy Gomez, who retired in 2019 after eight years as superintendent and 30 years with the district, filed the lawsuit in 2020, alleging her former employer discriminated towards her on the premise of gender, paying her considerably lower than her male predecessor.
After Gomez had been on the job for 4 years, the district carried out a evaluation of salaries, evaluating itself to 6 different districts. The research discovered that her compensation ranked final by not less than 22%. On the time, Gomez stated the district additionally underpaid her in comparison with her male predecessor, Clif Black.
Gomez and Black had been each employed with beginning salaries at $180,000, however the pay hole between the 2 amounted to $34,000 by their sixth yr in workplace.
Gomez repeatedly raised the problem at subsequent college board conferences, however an settlement was by no means reached between the 2 events.
In keeping with the lawsuit, a board member claimed that fellow board member Jim Zito, who ran for San Jose Metropolis Council in 2020, acknowledged that the “solely motive two feminine board members wished to extend Ms. Gomez’s pay was as a result of that they had ‘the identical factor between their legs.'”
To counter Gomez’s argument, the district introduced 16 causes as to why it believed she was paid lower than her predecessor together with efficiency points, issues over “pension spiking” and the district’s fiscal situation.
However within the findings, Decide Nathanael Cousins wrote that the district “failed to indicate that the pay disparity between Gomez and her predecessor was justified by a job-related ‘bona fide motive apart from intercourse.'”
“Even when the district has articulated job-related causes for the disparity, plaintiff has proven that they had been pretextual as a result of they weren't raised throughout Gomez’s tenure,” Cousins added.
In an announcement, Gomez stated she was “very blissful to see the reality come out.”
“It's a victory for ladies, and everybody who has suffered from office bullying and discrimination,” she stated. “Hopefully, this resolution forces elected officers to behave with the integrity we count on of them.”
Gomez’s lawyer, Sonya Mehta of the Oakland-based agency Siegel, Yee, Brunner and Mehta, stated the case confirmed the “significance of pay transparency.”
“Ms. Gomez would have by no means even recognized the district was severely underpaying her with out the comparability research,” she added. “It exhibits that we should battle for robust enforcement of ladies’s and equal rights, even within the face of lies and retaliation. Ms. Gomez gave her working life to her employer, now it should pay her an equal retirement profit.”
Board president Chris Corpus declined to remark, stating the board had but to see the ruling.