CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

This press release from the New York City Council Office of Public Information announces Councilmember Carol Greitzer's accusation that the Board of Education "discriminated against thousands of women employees at a financial loss running into the millions of dollars." Though not named in this release, the women who formed the Brooklyn College Women's Organization (BWCO) including Lilia Melani and Renate Bridenthal spearheaded the class action suit, documenting, organizing, and gathering evidence for discrimination in hiring, pay and tenure among CUNY-wide faculty, in addition to pregnancy discrimination.

A champion for women's rights, Councilmember Greitzer cites two particularly egregious examples from women faculty at Brooklyn College, and linked the discrimination to a larger pattern of institutionalized sexism in the city. Greitzer cites that only two women deans existed out of over seventy at fourteen board institutions, that there were only two women board members out of twenty one, all fourteen officers at CUNY "from the chancellor on down" are male, and only one woman was president (Jaqueline Wexler of Hunter College) out of nine universities and eight community colleges. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare investigated women workers' claims, saying "the weight of evidence...supports the complaint's (sic) allegation of sex discrimination." Greitzer's pledge to take the battle to Washington if necessary highlights the political alliances feminist organizers at Brooklyn College made to bolster their fight for gender parity.