The Houston Chronicle reports that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Houston ISD for alleged equal pay violations. The suit claims the district pays some female career and technical education specialists less than their male counterparts in violation of the Equal Pay Act.
An EEOC press release alleged that, since at least February 2019, HISD has been paying lower wages to a class of female senior CTE program specialists than it paid to male senior CTE program specialists for equal work in a job requiring substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility and performed under similar working conditions.
The EEOC further charged that HISD implemented a stringent interpretation of its compensation manual for female senior CTE program specialists that limited their ability to qualify for a higher starting salary based on their previous work experience. This resulted in male senior CTE program specialists being compensated at higher rates than their female colleagues who sometimes had just as much, if not more, related experience.
The lawsuit, EEOC v. Houston Independent School District, Civil Action No. 4:24-cv-00125, was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston after the agency first attempted to reach a pre-litigation settlement through the conciliation process. The EEOC is seeking back pay, liquidated damages, the elimination of the pay disparities, and other injunctive relief to correct and prevent future pay discrimination.
More information about pay discrimination can be found at https://www.eeoc.gov/equal-paycompensation-discrimination.
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