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January 14, 2009, 01:11 PM ET
SUNY-Stony Brook Settles With Female Postdoc Who Alleged Gender Bias
Sherry M.J. Towers, a former postdoctoral fellow in physics who said her faculty supervisor denied her maternity leave and told her she had to return to work within days of giving birth, in 2003, has settled her sex-discrimination lawsuit against the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The settlement was announced today by the American Association of University Women, which supported Ms. Towers in her lawsuit. The terms of the settlement are confidential, the association said.
Ms. Towers was employed by Stony Brook and assigned to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a federal facility outside Chicago. She filed the federal lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in December 2004. She said the university had failed to extend her postdoc contract after she complained about gender discrimination by her supervisor — John D. Hobbs, an associate professor of physics at Stony Brook also working at Fermi.
At the time she filed the suit, Ms. Towers told The Chronicle that her case represented the difficulties that women — and mothers in particular — have in pursuing academic careers in science. According to the AAUW, Ms. Towers is now preparing for a career as a high-school teacher of physics and mathematics.
Neither the university nor Mr. Hobbs returned telephone calls seeking comment.
Categories: Work-and-Life
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