A new lawsuit claims the University of Michigan has been systematically underpaying its professors, by paying out raises two months after they should have taken effect.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Michigan Court of Claims by sociology professor Fatma Müge Göçek is seeking class action status to force the university to pay back an estimated 3,600 tenured professors.
The problem, according to the complaint, is that tenured faculty are appointed on a “university year” basis, which means their salaries are split up evenly from July 1 to June 30. But when a faculty member earned a raise, the raise didn’t take effect until September.
“The bottom line: Faculty appointed on a University Year basis have been systematically underpaid each year they received a salary increase by the amount equal to the raise of their base pay multiplied by two twelfths,” the lawsuit claims.
The university’s faculty senate approved a resolution earlier this year calling on the school to apply retroactive pay to professors. The university has agreed to change the practice going forward, but has not publicly agreed to cover the back pay.
“I don’t know why there should be a lawsuit here except for the fact that while the university has agreed to correct this going forward, it refused to make it right going back,” said Matthew Turner, an attorney with Sommers Schwartz, which brought the lawsuit.
Turner said the lawsuit is seeking back pay going back three years. If a judge approves the class action status, professors would automatically benefit from the case if it succeeds.
A university spokesperson said Tuesday the school had not yet been served with the complaint, and that it had no comment.
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