Opinion ID: 486425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of Salary Increase

Text: 33 That Dugan did not meet the published criteria for a grant from the salary retention fund is clearly a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the university to have denied her request. We analyze it as such, rather than as part of the prima facie case, because a number of awards were made before the criteria were announced; thus there exists a question whether meeting those criteria was a qualification for an award. Dugan contends that she did submit market-oriented data, including information from the Wall Street Journal and Focus Magazine. She does not contend that this data demonstrated that she met the criteria. Nor did she make the submitted articles part of the record in the district court. The district court found that she submitted nothing to show that she was significantly underpaid. We find no reason to believe that the denial of her application was not justified. 34 Dugan next attacks that proffered reason as a pretext. Again, Dugan submits statistics meant to show that the university treated men more favorably in awards from the salary retention funds. She contends that twenty-seven per cent of the Ball State faculty members are female and women received eight per cent of the funds. This statistic suffers from deficiencies similar to those discussed above. 35 Once more, Dugan submits university-wide statistics. Here, her request was denied at the college, not the department level. But the need for more refined statistics is clear. The first of the criteria required that the applicant's expertise be in a high demand area. The purpose of the fund was to use salary raises to keep faculty members from being hired away by higher bidders. In some disciplines the market forces pulling faculty members away would be stronger. There might be a higher demand on the part of industry for experts in physics than in metaphysics. 36 Dugan's university-wide statistic also omits important information. No mention is made of how many men and women applied for grants and how many were refused. It is true that some of the grants were made before applications were solicited, but Dugan also fails to separate her numbers along these lines. The omission exacerbates the failure to give more refined information; more grants might have been made in areas where men were overrepresented. Cf. Craik v. Minnesota State University Board, 731 F.2d 465, 480 (8th Cir.1984) (market factor increases granted to seventeen men and one woman justified by greater market demand in predominantly male disciplines). For example, it does appear from some incomplete information in the record that many grants were given to males in computer science and in accounting. But there is no information about the gender make-up of those departments. 37 Dugan does not support her statistical argument with anecdotal evidence of discrimination. She does assert that men were more likely to receive grants because the higher-level university officials who made the selections were male. Such rank speculation lends her case no support. 38 Ball State did submit statistics showing that within Dugan's college, the College of Sciences and Humanities, women accounted for 13.8% of the applicants for retention fund increases. Men received eighteen awards and women two awards. Had the awards been strictly proportional, men would have received 17.24 awards and women 2.76 awards. This deviation is too small to indicate that there was discrimination. In the Mathematics Department, four faculty members applied, three males and one female, and one male received a grant. Neither side offers information about the gender make-up as a whole of the college or the department. The two sides' statistics taken together raise no question of fact whether Dugan's denial for failure to meet the published criteria was a pretext for gender discrimination.