A longtime official with the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado-Boulder is suing officials at the school, claiming they forced her out of her job because of her age and gender and replaced with her with a less-qualified and younger man.
, 56, filed suit in U.S. District Court naming the CU Regents, CU Chancellor Phil DiStefano and John Griffin, who became faculty director of the conference in 2014, as defendants.Clare is asking a judge for damages and to be given her old job back as director of public affairs and conference coordinator for the conference. If not, then front pay and benefits.
She is also seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress and humiliation.“Ms. Clare’s allegations don’t reflect the reality of the situation,” said CU spokesman Ken McConnellogue. “We look forward to defending the case in court.”
Clare worked for the conference from 1988 to 1992 and from 2000 to 2015, serving as an unpaid volunteer between those two periods.
Throughout its 68-year history, the conference has been a free, public event that promises to “bring the world to Boulder” by bringing in dozens of distinguished speakers from a wide variety of disciplines who reside outside of Colorado, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also says Clare’s job performance has been exceptional. In each annual performance evaluation from 2000 through 2014, Clare’s work was ranked as “outstanding” and “of exceptional quality,” the lawsuit said.
This, in spite of “multiple significant” budget cuts and the objections of CU President Bruce Benson and the conservative Republican regents, who viewed the conference as a “festival of liberals” that was obstructing one of their primary goals of promoting right-wing conservative political thought on the CU-Boulder campus, the lawsuit said.
Griffin forced Clare out of her job in December 2015 because of her age and sex and in retaliation for her complaints about his discrimination against her, the lawsuit said. DiStefano knew about Griffin’s actions against Clare but did not intervene, it said.
Griffin allegedly told a conference volunteer leader that “young men” need to be given opportunities or they will leave the conference and that Clare was standing “in the way” of the changes that needed to be made, the suit said.
Her replacement was 43-year-old Alan Culpepper, who had no previous experience managing conference similar to the Conference on World Affairs, the lawsuit says.
Clare’s annual salary after 15 years with the conference was $75,000, while Culpepper was hired at an annual salary of $108,000. Griffin hired three assistants to help Culpepper do the job that Clare had performed with two assistants, the lawsuit claims.
