Former Berkeley Athletic Department Official Settles Gender Discrimination Case

On Friday the Chronicle of Higher Ed reported:

The University of California system will pay more than $3.5-million to settle a sex-discrimination lawsuit with a former coach and athletics official on its Berkeley campus who sued after she was laid off, in 2004.

The official, Karen Moe Humphreys, who won an Olympic gold medal as a swimmer, coached women’s swimming at Cal from 1978 to 1992. She was an assistant athletics director when the university laid her off, which she said was in retaliation for her whistle-blowing about a hostile work environment for women in the athletics department.

According to the terms of the settlement, the university will pay Ms. Humphreys $3.5-million in lawyers’ fees and other litigation costs, and also reimburse her full back pay and benefits. She will be reinstated as a university employee in an unspecified post until January 2008, when she will retire, according to a joint statement released by Ms. Humphreys and Berkeley.

Here's additional (similar) coverage from the Daily Californian and Sports Illustrated.

Wow, that's two big payouts in one month from the taxpayers of California on account of gender discrimination (or alleged discrimination, in Humphrey's case) in the public higher education system.