Labor Dept. rules UConn underpaid females on 2014 women's basketball coaching staff

[HopJim]

I suspect that some of this issue was created by how UConn categorizes many of their staff, sports, professors, etc. Most firms, whether for profit or nonprofit, have salary ranges for different job levels. In theory, as your experience, performance level, and job responsibilities increase, so should your compensation. Since UConn's women's basketball staff has for many years been among the highest paid in college sports, suspect UConn ignored the fact that particularly as a state school, this applied equally to coaching staffs and other functions.

 

[Huskies990411]

Thankfully I was sent some information which greatly but not fully clarifies the situation as it relates to the WBB positions. The key to understanding it is the position designations that UCONN had established.
Let's say the university established 3 levels for Law Professor. Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. Theoretically all Level 1 Law professors should be making roughly the same salary give equal years of experience and similar performance history etc. What the audit revealed was that in the cases of the Law professors, WBB assistant coaches, football Dir of Operations that was not the case. We do something similar yearly at my company just to identify and correct significant outliers where two people with similar years of experience doing the same job and having the same performance history have "significantly" different salaries. Significantly changes every year but it is usually above 10% difference. That completely makes sense for law professors and my job. What still doesn't make sense to me is why not have separate position designations for WBB MBB. Separate position designations would allow you to pay different salaries for WBB and MBB assistant coaches. I also don't understand why this is a federal Department of Labor issue vs inequity among the employees of the state of CT.

I can answer the last question about why it is a DOL issue. UConn is a federal contractor. There are about 25,000 federal contractors across the country, including many of the larger higher education institutions. As part of being a federal contractor you are responsible for complying with federal non discrimination statutes enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The statute that UConn was found to be in noncompliance of can be found here if anyone is interested.

Executive Order 11246

Executive Order 11246 requires affirmative action and prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Contractors also are prohibited from discriminating against applicants or employees because...

www.dol.gov

Every few years you are scheduled for an evaluation of your hiring, promotions, and compensation practices as a federal contractor under EO 11246. UConn was scheduled, reviewed, and this was the outcome.

 

[CocoHusky]

I can answer the last question about why it is a DOL issue. UConn is a federal contractor. There are about 25,000 federal contractors across the country, including many of the larger higher education institutions. As part of being a federal contractor you are responsible for complying with federal non discrimination statutes enforced by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The statute that UConn was found to be in noncompliance of can be found here if anyone is interested.

Executive Order 11246

Executive Order 11246 requires affirmative action and prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Contractors also are prohibited from discriminating against applicants or employees because...

www.dol.gov

Every few years you are scheduled for an evaluation of your hiring, promotions, and compensation practices as a federal contractor under EO 11246. UConn was scheduled, reviewed, and this was the outcome.

Thanks very much, this was very informative. My company is also a federal contractor, now I know why we were doing those annual salary equity adjustments.

 

[Adesmar123]

Well, she single handedly developed Dolson, Stewie and Stokes.

Wow! All that with one hand! Amazing!

 

[Skeets]

Question, the article implied it was for the year 2014. If so, then was 2015 to 2020 not a problem? I suppose it could mean SINCE 2014. If CD made $313K in 2014, what is she making today? This is serious coinage...

 

[Huskies990411]

Question, the article implied it was for the year 2014. If so, then was 2015 to 2020 not a problem? I suppose it could mean SINCE 2014. If CD made $313K in 2014, what is she making today? This is serious coinage...

Not necessarily. OFCCP collects data and the contractor’s affirmative action plan relevant to a particular calendar year and only sometimes requests additional years of data. Not to suggest it continued to be a problem thereafter, but what the agency will typically allow is for the employer to show, it it can, that the problem was since corrected.