Two journalism professors have filed complaints accusing multiple Ohio University officials of skimping on the amount of merit raise money awarded to them while granting larger raises to younger faculty members.
Joe Bernt, 63, and Pat Washburn, 69, filed separate age discrimination complaints this month with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, respectively. Their complaints allege that Bob Stewart, director of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, admitted to awarding merit raises based on age.
But Stewart says his decisions when awarding the department’s $26,300 of merit raises were based on multiple factors, including which faculty members were most likely to receive job offers from other universities.
“I wanted to make sure we did not lose certain people,” Stewart said. “In the interest of the school, especially during a hiring freeze, if you lose a hotshot — a very productive faculty member — you’re not going to be able to replace them, which is bad for the school.”
Stewart acknowledged that there may have been a correlation between the faculty members most likely to accept other job offers and their ages, but insisted age was not a factor when determining how much raise money to award.
“I think it would be wrong to say (they received higher raises) because they were young,” Stewart added.
However, Bernt and Washburn said Stewart told them in separate meetings that he chose to award higher raises to younger faculty to try to keep them at OU.
“(Stewart) said he felt (younger faculty members) were more likely to take offers from other universities because other schools can get them cheap,” Bernt said.
“They want to keep younger faculty from jumping ship because this place is so screwed up.”
Both Bernt and Washburn said Stewart’s claim that age was not a driving factor in the merit raise decisions is false.
“Bob Stewart is lying,” Washburn said. “He’s just trying to save himself.”
‘They were misinformed’
Bernt and Washburn were each given a $2,500 merit raise, added onto their respective salaries of $103,424 and $109,596.
The other six journalism professors who received raises — Ellen Gerl, Hong Cheng, Bernhard Debatin, Yusuf Kalyango, Aimee Edmondson and Craig Davis — are all younger than Bernt and Washburn. Their raises ranged from $2,500 to $4,100. Their salaries before the raises ranged from $57,772 to $83,778.
Edmondson and Davis declined to comment. Gerl, Kalyango and Cheng did not respond to calls and emails for comment.
Bernt and Washburn argue that their consistently high marks on annual peer evaluations should have earned them higher raises.
University records show that both Washburn and Bernt have received the highest possible ratings on annual peer evaluations for each of the last six years — a distinction matched only by Cheng.
However, for the past two years, Debatin, Davis and Gerl also received top ratings on their peer evaluations.
“I have a hard time following their discrimination argument,” Debatin said in an interview earlier this week. “Their disrespect to faculty members who got (higher) raises — that is something I would never do.”
Stewart said peer evaluations were just one of many factors that determined the amount of merit raises.
“If they had that idea (that merit raises were based solely on peer evaluations), they were misinformed,” Stewart said.
Bernt and Washburn both said they want additional $1,600 raises from Stewart and Greg Shepherd, dean of the Scripps College of Communication, which would put them at the same level as the highest raises offered to journalism professors.
“Could it be that the raises were based on a hidden agenda, which was something other than merit?” Washburn asked in a November email to Stewart detailing his achievements and asking why his merit raise had been lower than that of other journalism professors.
“For example, if I had had a sex change operation, would that have gotten me more money?”
Both Washburn and Bernt insist their complaints are not about personal greed, but about fairness.
“This is really not about money; it’s about disrespect given to older workers in our society,” Bernt said. “There was a clear decision made to give bigger raises to younger faculty with no merit.”
Stewart and Shepherd denied the requests to increase the amount of raise money given to Bernt and Washburn.
‘Insufficient evidence’
In February, Bernt and Washburn took their concerns to OU’s Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit, whose office provided the funds for and approved the merit pool recommendations.
“If (Benoit) thought people were being discriminated against, she would have intervened,” said Ann Fidler, Benoit’s chief of staff.
She added that Benoit mainly looked to make sure each college distributed money to the correct number of people, rather than approving specific raises.
Benoit directed the complaint to OU’s Office of Institutional Equity, which concluded last month that there was “insufficient evidence” to support the professors’ claim of age discrimination.
The office’s executive director, Laura Myers, declined to comment on the investigation, saying the records spoke for themselves.
On May 4, Washburn filed an age discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He met with EEOC officials yesterday to discuss his complaint further.
“They confirmed this is definitely under their purview,” Washburn said, adding the agency will probably inform OU that it is investigating his complaint by the end of the week.
Bernt said he mailed a similar complaint to the Ohio Civil Rights Commission on Monday.
The Ohio Civil Rights Commission conducts investigations regarding discrimination complaints and “has the right to issue subpoenas, interrogatories, cease and desist orders, hold public hearings, and collect monetary benefits,” according to its website.
The EEOC conducts similar investigations. If the agency determines discrimination was present in the actions of an organization, it will first try to “settle the charge,” according to its website.
“If we aren’t successful, we have the authority to file a lawsuit to protect the rights of individuals and the interests of the public,” the EEOC website states.
Stewart said he had no comment about the complaints filed with the EEOC and Civil Rights Commission.
Both Washburn and Bernt said their aim is to receive $1,600 more so their raises are as high as the highest distributed in the journalism school.
“I would not go to the state if I did not have a valid complaint,” Washburn said. “I don’t want to cause the university trouble just for the heck of it.”
rm279109@ohiou.edu
@ThePostCampus
