A senior lecturer at Dublin City University suffered sexual discrimination when she was turned down for a professorship and she should now get the job backdated and €10,000 compensation, the Labour Court has ruled.
The court said that statistician Jane Horgan should be appointed associate professor with effect from November 14th 2002 with full retrospection of salary and benefits.
In a determination which has just become available the court also says that DCU, if it has not already done so, should set out clearly the minimum requirement in respect of the gender composition of interview panels.
The university should also introduce a policy obliging all members of interview panels to make contemporaneous notes of interviews, which should be retained for a minimum of a year.
Ms Horgan claimed she was discriminated against at all stages of the selection process because she was a woman after she applied for the job in April 2001. DCU denied any discrimination.
While she had failed to be appointed, Ms Horgan said that four other male candidates shortlisted along with her did get associate professorships.
Ms Horgan, a statistician specialising in accounting, took her case to an equality tribunal where an investigating officer found in her favour. The finding was appealed to the court by DCU.
The court determination says that out of a total of 47 top academic posts at the university only five are filled by women.
Associate professors are eligible to be members of the heads and professors' group, the university's decision-making body.
An associate professor is paid €10,000 to €15,000 a year more than a senior lecturer and is entitled to apply for promotion to the post of professor after having served three years, while senior lecturers do not have such an option.
Ms Horgan told the court that three of the other four candidates, having got to the grade of associate professor in 2002, were now full professors, and she was still a senior lecturer.
She said she had suffered physical and mental distress and was a victim of DCU "failing to adhere to its own or any fair and non-discriminatory procedures, its showing bias and ignoring custom and practice".
The court found that she was "on paper the most qualified of the interviewees". The court dismissed DCU's appeal.
It said that the university had "not discharged" the onus on it to prove that, on the balance of probabilities, the failure to promote Ms Horgan was "in no way tainted by discrimination, whether conscious or unconscious".