Black Woman Scholar Earns $75,000 in Settlement of Race Discrimination Lawsuit

Chapman University in Orange, California, has agreed to a $75,000 settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit that had been filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The suit claimed that Stephanie Dellande, an assistant professor of marketing at the university was denied tenure and denied promotion to associate professor because she is an African American. Dr. Dellande was let go from the university’s faculty after she was denied tenure. According to the suit, Dr. Dellande was the first African American to apply for tenure at the university’s School of Business and was subject to a higher standard for obtaining tenure than her non-Black peers.

In addition to the monetary award, the university agreed to designate an internal equal employment opportunity officer and institute a training program to reduce discrimination for employees of the business school and to maintain a system for tracking complaints of faculty members on tenure and promotion issues.

After learning of the settlement, Dr. Dellande said: “Chapman University’s actions caught me completely off guard – like a punch in the gut – especially since I was told that I was on track for tenure. In the big scheme of things, it meant that I would not have a seat at the table where policies were made, simply because of my race. However, the outcome is a victory for me. I have deep gratitude and appreciation to the EEOC for helping me through this ordeal.”

Dr. Dellande is currently an associate professor of marketing at Menlo College in Atherton, California. She is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans. She holds an MBA from the University of California, Riverside and a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of California, Irvine.