Peper v. Princeton University Bd. of Trustees

• Court: New Jersey Superior Court – Appellate Division
• Writing for the Court: PRESSLER
• Citation: 151 N.J.Super. 15,376 A.2d 535
• Parties: , 15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1133, 14 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7734 Ilene PEPER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES, William Bowen, F. Sheldon Hackney, Anthony Maruca, William Reed, Bruce Edwards, and Stanley Adelson,Defendants-Respondents.
• Decision Date: 04 May 1977

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151 N.J.Super. 15 376 A.2d 535, 15 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1133,
14 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 7734 Ilene PEPER, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES, William Bowen, F.
Sheldon Hackney, Anthony Maruca, William Reed,
Bruce Edwards, and Stanley
Adelson,Defendants-Respondents. Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. Argued Feb. 28, 1977.
Decided May 4, 1977.

[376 A.2d 536]

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Kathryn Trenner, Princeton, for plaintiff-appellant.

William J. Brennan, III, Trenton, for defendants-respondents (Smith, Stratton, Wise & Heher, Princeton, attorneys; Ann Reichelderfer, Princeton, on the brief).

Before Judges FRITZ, ARD and PRESSLER.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

PRESSLER, J. A. D.

Plaintiff Ilene Peper appeals from the judgment of the Superior Court, Law Division, dismissing her sex discrimination complaint against defendants Princeton University and six of its executive officers. The gravamen of her complaint is that she was denied promotion within the University's administrative ranks because of her sex. Having resigned from her position in September 1973, several months after the acts of discrimination complained of, she does not now seek either reinstatement or appointment to a promotional office but rather an award of monetary damages. For the reasons herein stated we conclude that her charge of unlawful discrimination in respect of her nonpromotion in July 1973 to the position of administrative officer was clearly proved and it

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was hence error for the trial court to have dismissed her complaint.

According to the proofs below, plaintiff was first employed by the University in 1960 as a secretary to one Arthur Allen, the personnel director of the so-called Accelerator Project at the Forrestal Campus. Allen, who is still employed by the University, testified on plaintiff's behalf. It was not disputed that at the time plaintiff was first hired Allen's assistant was a Mr. Feehan, whose employment title was that of administrative assistant, the lowest level of the eight-rank administrative hierarchy. Feehan left the office some six months later and plaintiff assumed his duties, having been promoted to the job title of administrative aid, a secretarial position, not an administrative one. Her performance was of a superior nature, and as the office grew, so did the scope and nature of her administrative responsibilities. Allen, impressed [376 A.2d 537] with the quality of her work and convinced that had she been a man, she would have been promoted into the administrative ranks, made seven separate unsuccessful requests to his superiors between 1961 and 1965 for her appointment to the administrative assistant position. Although she received regular salary increments, she did not receive the promotion until the middle of 1965, only several months before she first resigned from the University because of her husband's job relocation out of the Princeton area.

In 1968 the family returned to Mercer County and plaintiff was, at the invitation of the then Director of Personnel, rehired as an administrative assistant in the main personnel office. The office at that time was divided into four sections, wage and salary, employment benefits, training and communication, and recruitment. It was the recruitment section, headed by a Bruce Edwards, an assistant director of personnel, to which she was assigned. Apparently at the time of her rehiring the administrative staff in the personnel office consisted of the Director of Personnel, the four section chiefs (assistant or associate directors of personnel

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who were at least at the fourth level of the administrative hierarchy) and three assistants, all assigned to recruitment: one Joseph Mignon, one James Barbour, and plaintiff. She was the sole woman. Mignon had come to the University about a year before plaintiff's rehiring and Barbour about a month before. By January 1969 all three had been promoted from the first to the second level in the administrative hierarchy, that of administrative associate. Also in January 1969 Richard Horch, who also testified for plaintiff, took over the personnel office as Personnel Director, a position he held until he left the University in September 1972. The pertinent cast, at least until the events of July 1972, was completed by Horch's hiring of a fourth administrative assistant in the recruitment section, James Oliver, shortly after his own arrival. Oliver was not promoted to the administrative associate level until 1971, an event triggered apparently by Mignon's lateral transfer to the wage and salary section, which had grown sufficiently to warrant employment of an administrative assistant to the section chief.

Horch's testimony, corroborated by the documentary evidence and in no way even remotely disputed, is that from January 1969 until July 1972 plaintiff's job performance was outstanding. She not only competently performed her assigned duties but also initiated a variety of programs which have since become standard University policy. Her responsibilities increased as did the approbation of her superiors. While her merit was recognized by frequent salary raises, she was, however, denied the promotion she sought to the third rank in the hierarchy, the position of administrative officer, and that on the ground that if she were so promoted, her colleagues Mignon and Barbour would also have to be promoted.

In July 1972 Horch, sympathetic with her goal of becoming a higher-level personnel officer, suggested to her that she accept a lateral transfer as assistant to the head of the training and communication section, which, like the

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wage and salary section experience of the year before, had grown large enough to now warrant a second administrative staff member. She accepted this assignment after receiving Horch's assurance...