Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 23, 1993 TAG: 9311230141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The $1.05 million in back pay was divided among 83 women who sued the Navy as part of the class-action discrimination lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Harold Greene held more than a decade ago that the Navy's computer operations center had hired the women as systems analysts at lower pay grades than similarly qualified male applicants and promoted them more slowly.
His 1981 ruling led to a series of government appeals, including one to the Supreme Court, which ordered Greene to recalculate certain statistical findings.
A negotiated settlement of the case was reached in September and submitted to Greene for final approval. The money already has been paid to the women, lawyers in the case said.
At a hearing where he formally approved the settlement, Greene chastised the Navy and the Justice Department for needlessly contesting "every conceivable issue" in the case.
"This court was not surprised by such scandals as the Tailhook affair because they evidence the same implacable opposition by the Navy to fair treatment for women that has been revealed in the present action," Greene said, referring to the sexual-assault scandal that has rocked the Navy.
Greene said that he was "not aware of any other case in which both the government agency being sued for discriminatory activities - here the Navy - and its counsel - the Department of Justice - have engaged in more blatant obstructionism and deliberate delaying tactics."
by CNB