Gender and wage discrimination cases are nothing new for Iowa’s public universities.

In December 2024, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Silvia R. Cianzio v. Iowa State University, the State of Iowa, and the Iowa Board of Regents.

The court ruled in favor of Cianzio, a researcher at Iowa State University, allowing her to recover damages for the entire period of wage discrimination instead of limiting her recovery due to time restrictions.

Ann Brown, the lawyer who represented Cianzio, explained having a time limitation on wage-discrimination cases could give employers an incentive to pay women less.

“What the statute says is [plaintiffs can recover from] the entire period of discrimination because otherwise employers would be making money in discrimination,” Brown said.

Now, Corrine Griguer and Claudia Olivia, cancer researchers and professors at the University of Iowa, filed a Polk County lawsuit against the UI, the State of Iowa, and the Board of Regents on Feb. 5.

They are also being represented by Brown, who has experience dealing with gender discrimination workplace lawsuits in the state.

There are multiple components to the suit, alleging the pay and workspaces of both researchers were disproportionate to that provided to their male counterparts.

Misuse of funds

To start, the 29-page lawsuit alleges startup money promised in Griguer’s and Olivia’s contracts was used to cover portions of their salaries instead of for research purposes as promised.

The pair of cancer researchers came from the University of Alabama, where they worked from 2002 to 2018. Due to their success, they received two large grants from the National Institute of Health, in which Griguer was named the “principal investigator,” and Olivia was the “essential personnel” for research purposes.

When they migrated to the UI, Griguer had over $1 million in remaining NIH grant money to follow her to the university, according to court documents.

When hired in 2018, Griguer was allotted $800,000, and Olivia was allotted $200,000 to be used at their discretion for purposes such as the purchase of equipment or other laboratory needs.

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In December 2022, Griguer was notified the UI intended to breach her employment contract, taking back over $500,000 of her startup funds.

“The Department claimed that the startup funds would be used to pay 100% of both Plantiff’s salaries despite the U of I’s agreement that Plaintiffs’ salaries would be largely funded through department funds,” the lawsuit read.

The lawsuit also states Griguer was notified at that time that startup money had already been used to pay both plaintiffs’ salaries starting in January 2022 without their knowledge.

No male staff member was required to use startup money to fund their own salaries, which were primarily paid from department funds, unlike Griguer and Olivia, according to the suit.

Workspace discrepancies

Griguer was guaranteed 1,500 square feet of lab space in her original contract, along with an additional 500 square feet if she obtained additional grant funding according to the lawsuit. Oliva was guaranteed 100 square feet of lab space within Griguer’s lab, along with an office.

According to the lawsuit, Griguer only ever received 1,167 square feet of lab space, which was eventually reduced to 875 square feet.

This came after Griguer and Olivia received a second NIH grant, which should have provided additional lab space, according to their contract.

“Pursuant to her employment contract, upon receipt of a second NIH grant, Plaintiff Griguer should have received an increase in lab space to 2,000 net square feet. Instead, the U of I reduced her lab space from 1,167.83 square feet to 875.19 square feet,” the lawsuit reads.

The reduction, in turn, eliminated Olivia’s lab space entirely.

In July 2023, a male was appointed to the same position, a research assistant professor, as Olivia. The suit reads he was given $375,000 in startup funds — nearly twice what Olivia received — along with 750 feet of lab space and an office, according to documents.

The lawsuit stated Olivia only had access to an office three times a week and no lab space.

There were multiple instances alleged in the suit in which male faculty in the department were provided with 1,600 feet of lab space, when funded at a comparable or lower rate than Griguer.

Brown provided information on what discrepancies are typically seen in a gender discrimination workplace violation, adding workspace inequalities are not atypical.

“You just sort of see these same things over and over again. For example, you saw, you know, it was the issue of lab space. It was the issue of whether or not one of them has an office. I’ve represented women who all of their male peers had a secretary, but they did all their own secretarial work and other things like that,” Brown said. “They just kind of go into sort of gender stereotypes as to what women need to be successful, and I mean, they need the same things that men need to be successful.”

Disproportionate pay

Unequal wages were also alleged in the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff Griguer is still the only female full professor in the department and is the only professor whose research is fully funded, and she remains the lowest paid,” the suit reads.

UI policy states salaries are adjusted to reflect the amount of outside funding.

From 2018 to 2024, Griguer secured more outside funding than any male, meaning she should have been making more money than her colleagues, according to the policy. The lawsuit estimated she was instead making $20,000 to $60,000 less.

It was also alleged Griguer and Olivia worked in a hostile work environment. When Olivia specifically complained about derogatory comments and unfair treatment from a male colleague, she was soon asked to vacate her office space, which was then assigned to a male professor as his secondary office.

The variety of discriminatory actions mentioned in the lawsuit are said to violate the Iowa Civil Rights Act. A jury trial has been requested for the case, but a date has not yet been set.

Landon Storrs, a professor at the UI who specializes in the history of women and social movements through the 20th century U.S., gave context about how gender discrimination has changed with the times.

She described how discrimination was once women not being allowed to hold the same jobs as men or not allowing them to access the same level of education, therefore keeping them from holding positions such as doctors or lawyers. “Protecting” women was a common excuse for barring women from certain professions.

“​​There was an idea that the state, the government, had more power to intervene in women’s employment conditions because women bore children, and so therefore there was more of an obvious public interest, or government interest, in protecting women as mothers and feminists,” Storrs said. “In the early 20th century, we were very divided about this.”

She said economic trends have led to an increasing number of women in the workforce and that while there are a lesser number of women who are prevented from getting jobs, workplace discrimination is still prevalent in many other ways.

Linda Kerber, a professor at the UI and a historian renowned for her work on the history of women in the U.S., said it is important to continue fighting against gender discrimination.

“You asked me whether we are where we need to be, and my take on this is not only are we not where we need to be, but we are in grave danger of losing what we’ve accomplished,” Kerber said.

Kerber referenced the MIT Report, a historic moment led by molecular biologist and Professor Nancy Hopkins that resulted in the university’s admission of discrimination against women.

“[In] 1999, MIT publicly admitted to discriminating against female faculty, a landmark moment,” she said. “A group of women scientists documented widespread gender bias unequal resources, leading to a nationwide reckoning with sexism in science. Here we are, how many years later, Iowa is still not taking that seriously.”

The UI declined to comment on the lawsuit, only providing they do not comment on pending litigation.