Graciela Chichilnisky
Graciela Chichilnisky is a professor of economics, statistics, and math who sued Columbia for gender bias.
Education and career
Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Chichilnisky completed no undergraduate studies, moving straight to PhD work in the MIT econ department. She later moved to the math department at Berkeley, where she earned her first PhD. She earned a second from Berkeley's econ department.
She first joined the Columbia faculty in 1977, after postdoctoral work at Harvard, and has been tenured since 1979 in the Econ department. In 1995 she was named the UNESCO Professor of Mathematics and Economics.
Dispute with Columbia
Her original complaint against Columbia arose out of a conflict over her multiple campus offices. The university, seeking to maximize available space, sought to confine her to one office. Chichilnisky, however, asserted her right to an office in each of the departments in which she taught, and alleged that gender bias was behind the decision to restrict not only her number of offices, but her pay and her ability to attain promotions as well. After bringing suit against the university for its actions, she settled for $200,000. She is currently encouraging other faculty members to bring gender bias claims against the university.
