UPDATE: Court Grants Preliminary Approval for Settlement in Vassar College Pay Discrimination Lawsuit

September 15. 2026

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For Immediate Release
Sep 15, 2026

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

UPDATE: Court Grants Preliminary Approval for Settlement in Vassar College Pay Discrimination Lawsuit

 

On September 11, 2026, the Court granted preliminary approval of a proposed settlement in the class action lawsuit against Vassar College filed on behalf of women professors by ERA and Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein. The agreement requires Vassar to create a $5 million settlement fund to compensate affected class members; increase transparency regarding the methods and criteria it uses in compensation, promotion and performance evaluation decisions; disclose any new related policies or procedures; conduct annual pay equity audits by an independent consultant and make salary adjustments, if needed; and provide annual compliance reports to Plaintiffs’ counsel.

The Court will hold a final hearing on December 9, 2026 to determine whether to grant final approval of the settlement, including a proposed plan to distribute the settlement fund to approximately 84 women full professors who experienced pay discrimination between 2015 and 2026.

Originally filed in August, 2023, the lawsuit alleged Vassar had known for years of a continuing gender pay gap among its full professors and had not adequately addressed it, in violation of Title VII, New York State’s Equal Pay Law, and the New York State Human Rights Law.

The five named plaintiffs took on the litigation with overwhelming support from Class members, most of whom signed a joint statement in solidarity, alongside men full professors, women and men junior faculty, and a broad collection of students and alumni.

Read more.

 

To speak with counsel from Equal Rights Advocates, contact Cat Ulrich at 202-630-7839 or [email protected]. 

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About Equal Rights Advocates
Equal Rights Advocates fights for gender justice in workplaces and schools across the country. Since 1974, they have been fighting on the front lines of social justice to protect and advance rights and opportunities for women, girls, and people of all gender identities through groundbreaking legal cases and bold legislation that sets the stage for the rest of the nation. Additional information about Equal Rights Advocates is available at equalrights.org.

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
Lieff Cabraser is one of the country’s most successful firms exclusively representing plaintiffs in civil litigation, including in some of the most significant employment cases of the last decade. Partners Kelly Dermody and Michelle Lamy, co-counsel here, represented female workers in both the Goldman Sachs gender discrimination class action that resulted in a $215 million settlement for women at the company (Chen-Oster v. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, No. 10-cv-6950-AT-RWL), and in the Google gender pay equity litigation that resulted in a $118 million settlement for women at Google (Ellis v. Google LLC, No. CGC-17-561299). Additional information about Lieff Cabraser is available at www.lieffcabraser.com.