Evergreen School District: Court rules district discriminated against former superintendent on the basis of gender

SAN JOSE — A former Evergreen School District superintendent has been awarded roughly $2 million after a federal court found the district had “significantly underpaid its first female superintendent.”

Kathy Gomez, who retired in 2019 after eight years as superintendent and 30 years with the district, filed the lawsuit in 2020, alleging her former employer discriminated against her on the basis of gender, paying her significantly less than her male predecessor.

After Gomez had been on the job for four years, the district conducted a review of salaries, comparing itself to six other districts. The study found that her compensation ranked last by at least 22%. At the time, Gomez said the district also underpaid her compared to her male predecessor, Clif Black.

Gomez and Black were both hired with starting salaries at $180,000, but the pay gap between the two amounted to $34,000 by their sixth year in office.

Gomez repeatedly raised the issue at subsequent school board meetings, but an agreement was never reached between the two parties.

According to the lawsuit, a board member claimed that fellow board member Jim Zito, who ran for San Jose City Council in 2020, stated that the “only reason two female board members wanted to increase Ms. Gomez’s pay was because they had ‘the same thing between their legs.’”

To counter Gomez’s argument, the district presented 16 reasons as to why it believed she was paid less than her predecessor including performance issues, concerns over “pension spiking” and the district’s fiscal condition.

But in the findings, Judge Nathanael Cousins wrote that the district “failed to show that the pay disparity between Gomez and her predecessor was justified by a job-related ‘bona fide reason other than sex.’”

“Even if the district has articulated job-related reasons for the disparity, plaintiff has shown that they were pretextual because they were not raised during Gomez’s tenure,” Cousins added.

In a statement, Gomez said she was “very happy to see the truth come out.”

“It is a victory for women, and everyone who has suffered from workplace bullying and discrimination,” she said. “Hopefully, this decision forces elected officials to act with the integrity we expect of them.”

Gomez’s lawyer, Sonya Mehta of the Oakland-based firm Siegel, Yee, Brunner and Mehta, said the case showed the “importance of pay transparency.”

“Ms. Gomez would have never even known the district was severely underpaying her without the comparison study,” she added. “It shows that we must fight for strong enforcement of women’s and equal rights, even in the face of lies and retaliation. Ms. Gomez gave her working life to her employer, now it must pay her an equal retirement benefit.”

Board president Chris Corpus declined to comment, stating the board had yet to see the ruling.