Law prof who wrote about 'the law school scam' settles discrimination suit for $160K
A University of Colorado Law School professor who blogged at Inside the Law School Scam has settled his June 2023 lawsuit alleging pay discrimination and retaliation. (Image from Shutterstock)
A University of Colorado Law School professor who blogged at Inside the Law School Scam has settled his June 2023 lawsuit alleging pay discrimination and retaliation.
The law school will pay $160,000, with $60,000 going to law professor Paul Campos and $100,000 to his attorney, Law.com reports.
He will also report to a person other than Lolita Buckner Innis, the law school’s dean.
The Denver Post and Above the Law also have coverage.
Campos had alleged pay discrimination based on his Latino ethnicity and retaliation for raising concerns about pay and unfair treatment.
When he filed the suit, Campos told the ABA Journal that he has had “a bullseye” on his back for comments that he made criticizing the law school’s financing. He said the law school spends twice as much as it generates in revenue. Additionally, in 2014, the Atlantic published a feature that he wrote, “The Law School Scam,” which focused on for-profit schools.
The university said in a statement it had been in negotiations with Campos to resolve the dispute since before the suit was filed. Campos dismissed claims against Innis and Philip DiStefano, the university’s chancellor, the university told publications covering the settlement.
“We do not typically speak to personnel matters, but given that the university denies any wrongdoing, we will not have a change in leadership,” university spokesperson Nicole Mueksch told the Denver Post.
Campos had alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1966.
Campos blogged about the settlement in three posts at the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog here, here and here.
“Too often, the details of this kind of story are never told because of a nondisclosure agreement, which is something I wasn’t willing to consider,” he wrote.
Campos said Innis had refused to review the recommendation of a peer review committee that gave him a bad annual review, “even though I had had an excellent year in terms of all conventional metrics of evaluation.” He alleges that the faculty peer review committee used “an arbitrary and standardless process” to evaluate faculty members.
The dean then engaged in “a series of egregious retaliatory acts after my lawyer sent the university a letter putting it on notice that we were considering filing a lawsuit,” he alleges.
Campos said he was kicked off an important committee and removed from teaching a class.
Campos told the Denver Post that he was “extremely happy” with the settlement.
“I got substantial compensation, and more important than that, I had [Innis] removed as my supervisor permanently,” he said.
