8 -The Michigan Daily -Wednesday, June 15, 1994 Crystal drops class action suit, sues on own for gender discrimination CRYSTAL tial memoonNov. 3,1992tothePoliti- cal Science Executive Committee, Continued from page 1 Lieberthal stated that different stan- ommendation based on inaccurate, dards were applied. incomplete, misleading and biased "It's interesting that Ken should actions taken by Arlene Saxonhouse, say that because we have him quoted chair at the time, and others. that they had held me to a higher stan- Saxonhouse could not be reached for dard than male candidates and that my comment. record was stronger than at least one Ken Lieberthal, an internal review male candidate last year who was ten- committee member who recom- ured and promoted," Crystal said. mendedagainsttenureforCrystal,told "Inanother 'confidential' statement the Detroit News that she was helped sent ... November 5, 1992 in a faculty by her gender in the tenure process. meeting Lieberthal admitted 'her writ- "Jill was clearly given more votes tenrecord isclearly more complete and (in the tenure process) than she would of higher quality than is that of at least have if she was a male," Lieberthal oneotherperson whorecentlyreceived said in the article. Reached this week, tenure from us.' ... Of those being he declined further comment. considered for tenure, the only people But Crystal said that in a confiden- who received tenure in the department are male," Crystal said. Duerr, an attorney for the Univer- sity, confirmed the existence and sub- stance of the memos, but refused to 1_ provide copies to The Michigan Daily claiming they were for departmental E 1 Ji use only. Walter Harrison, vice president for University relations, said he felt Crys- tal would be denied class action status based on the outside statistician's testi- mony in court. The University hired David Peterson, an adjunct professor in the 'Of those being consideredfor tenure, the only people who received tenure in the department are male.' - Jill Crystal assistant professor Institute of Statistics and Decision Sci- ences at Duke University and president of his own statistical litigation com- pany. A graduate of Stanford, he has testified in courts around the nation as an expert and worked with attorneys. Using figures provided by Univer- said in his study that although more males were granted tenure, he attrib- uted this difference to "chance factors in the selection process." All the male candidates recom- mended by the political science depart- ment were granted tenure by LSA while only 83.3 percent of the women re- ceived tenure. Peterson said there is no evidence that these figures are statisti- cally significant or due to gender dis- crimination. No other female professor joined Crystal in her class action lawsuit. University counsel cites this as lack of support for class action status. Crystal testified that she contacted other women about her lawsuit, asking if they would sign a statement of sup- port for her claims. She said while many women agreed with her claims, the female faculty here fear possible retaliation by the University if they step forward. Crystal is also suing a colleague in the political science department, Prof. David Singer, for defamation. "At a meeting of the International Studies Association on Nov. 20, 1992, the day after the department voted to recom- mend me for promotion and tenure,... he got up and spoke at some lengths about me and why he didn't think I should be tenured and promoted. I wasn't even at the conference." Crystal alleges that Singer told her peers at the panel that her work was an "example of everything that was bad in politicalscience,"and she was a"young woman who couldn't crunch numbers ... couldn't even count," that her work was "no good" and "not science." Singer declined to comment about ACCOUNT mini L. London $389* Paris $399* Frankfurt $399* Madrid $375* Rome $45* i f i sity counsel, Peterson found that from 1977-1994, 88.7 percent of the male Color Printing and 75.3 percent of the female candi- dates from the departments were ap- Color Printing proved by LSA for tenure. Peterson Color Printing Color Printing Religious Big savings on color printing for all clubs, businesses, and Se rv ic e s organizations. A jm- - a CrystaI the matter on advice from legal coun- sel, but he prepared a written statement concerning the charges. He said the allegations are based on "hearsay andindirectly transmittedrec- ollections." In the statement, he said that at the conference, he was only emphasizingthe importanceofstatisti- cal evaluation in his field. He alluded to a young woman in his political science department recently being considered for tenure and her inability to "crunch numbers." He sai his comments were intended to "illu- minate"aproblemin thediscipline, not to defame her. Crystal, however, was the only woman that year being considered for tenure and offered names of people at the conference who wouid support her version. Singer said it was improbable that Crystal's accusations are true and of- fered the names of three colleagues aj the meeting on his behalf. He said he feels her complaint is frivolous, incor- rect and an affront to free expression and a threat to academic freedom. "Singer was reprimanded in writing by the University as a result of his state- ments about Prof. Crystal," Balch said. Despite her claims that tenure de- nial has harmed her reputation and chances for future employment, Crys tal will be teaching at Auburn Univer- sity in Alabama later this summer. Balchsaidthe position, however, is at a lower salary and she would not have pursuedthepositionifshehadnot been denied tenure.