Lawsuit: University of Michigan underpaid professors by not giving them raises for 2 months of year

DETROIT — A University of Michigan tenured professor is suing the Board of Regents for breach of contract, alleging that the university has "systematically" underpaid her and and thousands of other professors because of a failure for years to award raises to them for two months of the year.

In the lawsuit, filed this week in the Court of Claims and seeking to be certified as class action, UM sociology Professor Fatma Muge Gocek alleges that she and other professors on the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses are appointed on a university year basis, and offer academic instruction from September 1 to April 30 or May 31 of the following year. Their yearly salary is paid over a 12-month period, from July 1-June 30 the following year, which is the university's fiscal year.

But UM does not award the professors’ raises until Sept. 1, two months after UM begins paying the professors' annual salary, which the lawsuit says has led to 3,600 of them not getting raises in July and August every year.

Professors have been denied payment of their raises in those two months since the 1970s, said Matthew Turner, an attorney in the Southfield-based Sommers Schwartz law firm representing Gocek and potentially the other professors. But the statute of limitations only allows damages to be sought on a breach of contract claim for up to three years, he said.

"University of Michigan has been able to get away with this for years," said Turner. "It is really unfortunate that the university has taken advantage of their faculty members like this for so many years because they were able to get away with it."

UM declined comment because it had not yet been served with the lawsuit, university spokesperson Kay Jarvis said.

UM has recently announced that it is changing its policy by awarding faculty raises at the beginning of the fiscal year starting on July 1, 2025, Turner said.

"But they refused to go back and do anything to correct the past," Turner said.

The suit seeks to be certified as class-action and could exceed more than 3,600 members.

Damages could amount to more than $2.5 million, Turner said.

_____