Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Barbara Contreras v. Maricopa County Community College District

Maricopa County Community College District (Maricopa) appeals the district court’s decision finding Maricopa violated the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206 (d), in regards to the wages paid Barbara Contreras. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The case was decided on stipulated facts. In 1973, Contreras began working in the financial aid office of Phoenix Community College, one of seven such institutions overseen by the Maricopa County Community College District. Contreras’s job classification was student loan clerk.

Sometime in 1976, she began to take on responsibilities beyond those required in her job description. She did this partly on her own initiative because the volume of work increased in the 1970’s and she wanted to see that the work was completed, and partly on the initiative of her supervisor, Financial Aid Director Robert Kintz.

In September of 1977, Contreras asked Kintz to place her in a higher job classification, that of financial aid assistant. She believed such a change was warranted because she had compared her duties to those of a male financial aid assistant who worked at another school in the district and found them to be the same. Kintz agreed, and submitted…