By Jordyn Brown, The Register-Guard
Two University of Oregon professors finalized a $170,000 settlement this week in a lawsuit filed two years ago against the university and one of its deans for age discrimination.
Architecture professors Warren "Gerry" Gast and Hans Joachim Neis sued the UO and former College of Design Dean Christoph Lindner after Lindner tried to permanently reassign them from the UO's Portland campus to the Eugene campus, according to a news release from the professors' lawyer Craig Crispin.
Gast and Neis argued Lindner's choice to move the "oldest Portland tenured faculty members" and to "retain younger and adjunct staff without credible justification" was an act of age discrimination, Gast said in the release.
At the time, Gast recently had helped Portland Public Schools with a successful bond campaign for school reconstruction and was appointed by the superintendent of to the Master Plan Committee for the reconstruction of Lincoln High School.
Neis was the director of the Portland Architecture Program for more than seven years and remains the director of Portland Urban Architecture Research Lab.
After two years of grievances through the faculty union United Academics and the lawsuit, both sides reached a settlement of $170,000 this week.
The resolved grievances provide Gast and Neis employment at the Portland campus for at least two years. The settlement also allows the professors to sue for breach of contract if they are thereafter reassigned to Eugene.
Kay Jarvis, the university’s director of public affairs and issues management, released a statement:
“For the reasons outlined in the university’s previously filed answers and the settlement agreements, the University of Oregon and former Dean Christoph Lindner disagree with the plaintiffs’ allegations. The settlements were made to eliminate the cost and inconvenience of proceeding through trial."
Follow Jordyn Brown on Twitter @thejordynbrown or email at jbrown@registerguard.com.
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