The University of Minnesota School of Music has a “troubled track record for promoting and hiring female professors,” but the stalled career of a tenured faculty member who sued the U is not the result of sex discrimination, a judge ruled earlier this month.
Musicologist Karen Painter was placed in the music department by the provost in 2007 when the U’s law school hired her husband, the prominent ethics expert Richard Painter.
She was granted tenure in 2011 but denied a 2018 promotion from associate professor to full professor on the basis of a light publication record and below-average teaching scores. In complaints to multiple investigative bodies, the 57-year-old Painter argued that decision had more to do with her sex, age and status as a spousal hire than her qualifications for promotion.
Painter alleged in her lawsuit that male leaders in the music school retaliated against her for urging a female colleague and a female student to file Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action complaints regarding the men’s behavior.
“I’m an expert in Nazi Germany, and when I see problems, I’m going to call them out,” she said in an interview. “I’m making (the music school) a better place for these future women.”
She also highlighted the male-dominated nature of the music school which, according to Hennepin County District Judge Francis Magill’s order, had hired or promoted only seven women to full professor in 30 years and none in musicology in over 20 years.
That imbalance prompted then-Provost Karen Hanson to tell the U’s Senate Judicial Committee “there is something wrong over there” in the music school, according to the order.
Painter’s complaints
Besides urging others to speak out, Painter filed her own complaints against several male colleagues.
The U’s EOAA office in 2020 made a finding against only one of those men – David Myers, music school director from 2008-14. It found Myers engaged in “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” when he described Painter to colleagues as “seductive” and claimed she met with him while wearing a short skirt and no underwear.
Myers — who remained on faculty after he was removed as director — retaliated against Painter while she later sought the promotion, the EOAA found, but his behavior didn’t rise to the level of sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination.
Responding to a similar complaint, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in June 2021 made a finding of “no probable cause” regarding harassment, reprisal and the failure to promote Painter.
Undeterred, Painter filed the lawsuit a month later, seeking a promotion to full professor with damages and back pay to July 2018. Magill dismissed several counts last year and granted the U’s motion for summary judgment on May 1.
Legitimate reasons
The judge found Painter “met the low bar of establishing she was qualified for promotion,” based on “impressive educational qualifications, academic contributions and work history.”
That, combined with the music school’s imbalanced hiring record, established a “prima facie (first-impression) case of gender discrimination,” he wrote.
However, promotion is a subjective call, and the U “provided legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for Painter’s lack of promotion,” Magill wrote.
The music school faculty vote was 14-1 against promoting Painter to professor. Subsequent groups agreed with that decision, from the music school director, College of Liberal Arts dean and provost to the promotion and tenure committee on an 11-0 vote.
Despite losing her case, Painter considers the judge’s ruling a win.
“I wanted to show there’s a discriminatory workplace at the flagship” and that she deserved a promotion, she said. “I don’t need the money … but I wanted to prove a point, and I proved it.”
University spokesman Jake Ricker said by email: “The University of Minnesota is dedicated to the principles of equity in the workplace. We appreciate the Court’s ruling, which dismisses Professor Painter’s claims and finds that a trial is not warranted.”Painter plans to appeal.