Opinion ID: 373835
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Faculty and Administrative Salaries Generally

Text: 22 Figures compiled for the purpose of administering Mary Institute's pension fund for about fifteen male and fifty-five female employees reveal higher average salaries for the males. 6 The figures are skewed, however, by the inclusion of the salaries of about twelve female clerical workers (whose salary range is lower than that of faculty members), the exclusion of the salary of Headmistress Wilson (who is the highest paid person at Mary Institute but who is not in the pension plan), and by the inclusion of the $17,000 salary of the male maintenance engineer. Further, about fifty percent of the male faculty but only about twenty percent of the female faculty have administrative responsibilities in addition to teaching responsibilities. Giving little weight to the pension fund figures, the district court compared specific faculty jobs within Mary Institute. For example, it found that Berkeley Gunther, the female dean of the middle school, and Harvey Sperling, the male dean of students, held comparable positions and that each earned $16,900 per year. Sperling had had more experience as dean. The court also found that Jackie Jundt, the female head of the Beasley School, who earned $16,000, had held her administrative post for a shorter period than Gunther or Sperling. 23 The court made additional findings relating to faculty salaries generally. The court found that Headmistress Wilson is and has been a nationally respected spokeswoman for the cause of equal rights and equal pay for women. He credited her testimony and that of Headmaster Stearns to the effect that their decisions on pay were not based on sex. The court found, in reliance on Stearns' deposition testimony, that the Independent School Association of the Central States had examined Mary Institute's pay practices during Stearns' administration and had concluded that they were in compliance with the Equal Pay Act. The court apparently discounted the testimony of Horner and of two other female teachers that Stearns or Wilson had acknowledged to them that Mary Institute had had a policy of paying males more than females. One of the other teachers, Nancy Linn, had recently been terminated from employment at Mary Institute. The other teacher, Marie Globig, was in her nineteenth year as a biology teacher at Mary Institute.