Labor & Employment Law — 11/19/08

$1.8 million settles suit against university for religious bias

Federal district court judge Mary H. Murguia of the district of Arizona entered a consent decree for nearly $2 million and significant remedial relief to resolve a class-based religious bias lawsuit against the University of Phoenix and its parent corporation, Apollo Group, Inc, according to a November 10, 2008 statement from the EEOC. Apollo Group and the University of Phoenix are one of the largest employers in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

The University of Phoenix engaged in a widespread practice of discriminating against non-Mormon employees who worked as enrollment counselors in the university’s Online Division in violation of Title VII, alleged the EEOC in its lawsuit (EEOC v University of Phoenix, Inc, No CV 06-2303-PHX-ROS). Enrollment counselors at the University of Phoenix are responsible for recruiting students and are largely evaluated based on the number of students they recruit. At present, the university has over 2,000 employees working in online enrollment.

According to the EEOC, testimony of witnesses in the case revealed that managers in the Online Enrollment Department at the university discriminated against non-Mormon employees and favored Mormon employees in several ways, including: (1) providing the Mormon employees better leads on potential students; (2) disciplining non-Mormon employees for conduct for which Mormon employees were not disciplined; (3) promoting lesser-qualified or unqualified Mormon enrollment counselors to management positions while repeatedly denying such promotions to non-Mormon enrollment counselors; and (4) denying tuition waivers to non-Mormon employees for failing to meet registration goals, while granting the waivers to Mormon employees.

“We are pleased that University of Phoenix is going to stop condoning such favoritism toward Mormon employees and the resultant discrimination against non-Mormon employees,” said EEOC Phoenix Regional Attorney Mary Jo O’Neill. “It is the EEOC’s belief that, for many years, the University of Phoenix condoned an environment in which Mormon managers felt free to engage in favoritism toward their Mormon employees, and did so by providing the Mormon employees things such as strong leads on potential students. Given that evaluations are based largely on recruitment numbers, this disproportionate assignment of leads affected a whole host of matters for employees, including compensation, access to tuition waivers, and ability to be promoted.”

The consent decree entered into by the EEOC, the University of Phoenix and the Apollo Group provides monetary relief of $1,875,000 to 52 individuals. The decree also contains several strong provisions designed to stop further religious discrimination and prevent it from recurring, including: (1) dissemination of a policy to all employees in the university’s Online Enrollment Department, stating that the company has zero tolerance for religious discrimination and that any violation of the policy will result in termination; (2) training for managers and non-managers on the issue of religious discrimination; (3) creating a system to include in managers’ evaluations an assessment of their compliance with equal employment opportunity laws; and (4) hiring a diversity officer, and the staff necessary, at the university to monitor compliance with the terms of the consent decree.

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