Last Updated September 23, 1999; comments to marshamiller@indstate.edu

The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund Board of Directors adopted one new case June 18 and awarded additional funding to five ongoing LAF-supported cases.

A total of $46,500 was awarded by the board, adding to $8,000 awarded by the Marguerite Rawalt Legal Defense Fund Trustees earlier in June. The Rawalt Fund is a $300,000 trust that funds only LAF-supported cases.

The newly adopted case is Crangle v. Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (CA). Colleen Crangle, a former senior research scientist at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, was awarded $8,000 to support her pending sex discrimination lawsuit.

Crangle, a computer scientist with a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford, was hired by the School of Medicine’s Section on Medical Information in May 1995. The offer was contingent on federal funding through a grant she was writing with Larry Fagan, another senior research scientist in the section. The funding came through in November 1995 and Crangle also helped secure additional federal funding.

Crangle worked for eight months as an hourly-paid consultant while awaiting her July 1996 appointment as a senior research scientist. The appointment came with an initial term of 15 months. Crangle repeatedly asked for a formal letter of appointment but was repeatedly denied. Three months later, Crangle was told by both Fagan and Dean Edward Shortliffe that there was no more funding for her, even from the additional grant.

Fagan also told Crangle that she had "strong opinions that (she) didn’t want to change," and that as the section’s only female senior research scientist, she was "a threat" to him. Fagan and Shortliffe also imposed special restrictions on Crangle for future funding, such as only writing proposals in areas of research defined by Fagan, not writing any big proposals, and automatically including Fagan on any proposals she wrote. Crangle was also told not to think of herself has having the rights and responsibilities of a senior research scientist but to understand that her only function in the section was to support Fagan in his research efforts.

When she objected, Crangle was demoted. She was assigned work outside the section in a low-level technical programming job. She was fired March 1, 1997. The firing was characterized as a layoff necessitated by lack of funding. Crangle notes that federal funds supporting her salary were secured through October 1998.

Crangle filed an internal grievance with Stanford, which she withdrew in June when she discovered that all sex discrimination charges were excluded from grievance review. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Upon receipt of a right to sue letter, Crangle filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging sex discrimination, hostile work environment sexual harassment, disparate treatment based on gender, and retaliation for complaining of sex discrimination.

Ongoing cases awarded

The five ongoing cases awarded additional funding are:

• $10,000 to Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic and State University
• $6,000 to Duffy/Jackson v. California Polytechnic State University
• $6,000 to Fish et al. v. St. Cloud State University
• $6,500 to Grudzinski v. University of California-Irvine Medical Center
• $10,000 to Weinstock v. Columbia University

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