Denny v. Westfield State College
| Decision Date | 12 May 1987 |
| Docket Number | 78-3068-F.,Civ. A. No. 78-2235-F |
| Citation | 669 F. Supp. 1146 |
| Parties | Marilyn DENNY and Leah Stern, Plaintiffs, v. WESTFIELD STATE COLLEGE, et al., Defendants. Catherine DOWER, Plaintiff, v. WESTFIELD STATE COLLEGE, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Betty A. Gittes, Shaevel, Shaevel & Gittes, Boston, Mass., for Denny, Stearn and Dower.
Morris M. Goldings, Mark Peters, Hawkes & Goldings, Boston, Mass., for Westfield State College.
Nancy Gertner, Boston, Mass., for Dower.
Plaintiffs in these consolidated actions, present and former faculty members of Westfield State College ("WSC" or "Westfield State"), allege that they were discriminated against because of their sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq. Specifically, plaintiffs allege they received lower salaries than similarly situated male faculty members at WSC.
As originally commenced, the plaintiffs in No. 78-2235-F brought their complaint on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated. On May 30, 1986, the Court denied plaintiffs' motion to certify the class and allowed defendants' motion to dismiss the class allegations from the complaint. The claims of the three named plaintiffs were tried to the Court on June 2-4, 1986.
Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a), the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.
1. Plaintiff Leah Stern is a female who was employed by defendants from August 1973 to August 1977 in the Philosophy Department of Westfield State College.
2. Plaintiff Marilyn Denny is a female who was employed by defendants from December 1971 to August 1977 in the Sociology Department of Westfield State College.
3. Plaintiff Catherine Dower is a female who has been employed by defendants since 1956 in the Music Department of Westfield State College.
4. Defendants Westfield State College and the Board of Regents of Higher Education are agencies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and are "employers" within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e.
5. Prior to trial, the parties entered a stipulation providing:
6. Plaintiffs' evidence at trial consisted of the testimony of plaintiff Dower and Arlene S. Ash, Ph.D., a Professor of Statistics. Dr. Ash undertook a statistical study of wages at WSC, the results of which were admitted at trial. Defendants' evidence consisted of the testimony of Ernest T. Kendall, Ph.D., a labor economist, who also performed a statistical study of WSC's system of compensation, and Jean Regan, formerly an employee in the personnel office of the Board of Regents of Higher Education (successor to the Board of Trustees of State Colleges).
1. Statistical Evidence
7. Both Dr. Ash and Dr. Kendall used a statistical method known as multiple regression analysis to produce their different opinions. Briefly put, multiple regression analysis is a computer-assisted statistical method by a which a variety of factors ("explanatory variables") are considered at one time to determine their combined effect on another variable such as salary ("outcome variable"). See generally Pouncy v. Prudential Insurance Co., 499 F.Supp. 427, 499-50 n. 11 (S.D.Tex.1980). In this case, Drs. Ash and Kendall set out to determine how factors such as seniority, departmental affiliation, and prior experience, affected the salaries of WSC faculty members. The theory goes: to the extent salaries at WSC are not fully explained by these factors, an impermissible factor, such as sex, may account for the discrepancy. Moreover, assuming the proper variables are selected and that the result of the analysis is "statistically significant," the amount of salary differential due to sex discrimination may be estimated.
Though both Drs. Ash and Kendall used this basic method, they actually used two different types of regression analysis. Dr. Kendall used what is known as the "dummy variable" technique whereas Dr. Ash performed "men only" regressions. Each criticized the other's chosen methodology, but generally agreed that neither approach is demonstrably superior to the other.
8. Relying on data supplied by defendants during discovery, Dr. Ash coded information for all full-time faculty members at WSC during the years 1974 through 1984. Dr. Ash used the following explanatory variables: departmental grouping, seniority at WSC, years of prior tenure-track teaching experience, years of other relevant prior experience, current rank, and the number of years since a terminal degree (e.g., Ph.D. or M.F.A.) was obtained. Using this model, Dr. Ash reported that she was able to "explain" over seventy percent of variation in men's salaries at WSC in every year studied except one.1 However, in the latter years of her study, Dr. Ash's results tended to provide less explanation of salary variance among male faculty members.
9. Applying the formula for men's salaries to women faculty members in each year, Dr. Ash predicted what salary comparable women would be expected to receive at WSC in each year. For the years studied, Dr. Ash concluded that on average, women faculty members at WSC were subject to salary deficits (presumably because of sex) in the following amounts:
YEAR SALARY DEFICIT
1974 $ 702
1975 676
1976 704
1977 578
1978 485
1979 725
1980 750
1981 707
1982 1354
1983 1996
1984 1861
In every year except for 1978 these results were thought to be "statistically significant" as measured by their "P-values."2 The results for 1978 were considered statistically borderline.
10. Extrapolating from the model to the three named plaintiffs, Dr. Ash estimated that in each year at WSC they were subject to the wage disparities as compared to the predicted similarly qualified male professors in the following amounts:
YEAR DENNY STERN DOWER
1974 $1,637 $1,187 $ 4,578
1975 1,373 1,265 4,346
1976 1,582 1,582 4,321
1977 4,314
1978 3,572
1979 3,425
1980 3,056
1981 3,252
1982 3,065
1983 2,765
1984 3,449
TOTALS $4,592 $4,034 $40,143
11. Dr. Ash also performed analysis using the "dummy-variable" approach favored by Dr. Kendall. The results obtained were similar to her male-only regression studies.
12. Defendants' expert, Dr. Kendall, raised several objections to the appropriateness of Dr. Ash's methodology and the validity of her results. The Court will discuss these criticisms in some depth.
13. The first set of criticisms levelled at Dr. Ash's report concerns problems believed to be inherent in the data set from WSC. Specifically, Dr. Kendall testified that the results obtained from regression analysis are suspect because of the presence of "multicollinearity," "nonrandomness in the distribution of the residuals," and "heteroscedasticity."
14. Multicollinearity exists when two or more of the explanatory variables tend to move in a parallel fashion. For example, a faculty member's age and seniority at Westfield State have an obvious relationship to one another. Multicollinearity is present to some degree in all of the regression studies performed by Drs. Ash and Kendall. Drs. Ash and Kendall both agreed that the presence of multicollinearity would produce results that are less precise than they would otherwise be. However, from the evidence presented, the Court accepts the testimony of Dr. Ash that the presence of multicollinearity would merely tend to overestimate the amount of error associated with the estimate of difference in salary by sex. In other words, P-values will be artificially higher than they would be if there were no multicollinearity present. Thus, the presence of multicollinearity means that results found to be significant in the analysis are likely to be even more significant than they appear. Because Dr. Ash's results demonstrated statistic significance for each year studied except one, the Court does not find that the presence of multicollinearity detracts from the validity of her findings.
15. Heteroscedasticity is the lack of common or constant variance. In Dr. Ash's model, for example, this would occur if the wage disparity were greater for more senior faculty than less senior faculty. In fact, Dr. Ash admitted that this defect was probably present to some degree, but suggested that its effect was not significant. The Court does not find that the possible presence of heteroscedasticity itself detracts from the validity of Dr. Ash's study.
16. Dr. Kendall also criticized the nonrandomness in the distribution of residuals in Dr. Ash's...
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