A Drexel professor won a $355,000 pay-inequity judgment. Then the university retaliated, a new lawsuit says.

A Drexel University philosophy professor is accusing the school of retaliating against her since she won $355,000 in federal court over allegations of pay inequity.

Marilyn Gaye Piety, who has been teaching at Drexel since 1998 and risen through the academic ranks, sued her employer in 2022, saying that she suffered from a hostile work environment and wage discrimination.

A judge dismissed most of her claims, but allowed the equal-pay counts to head to trial. In January, a jury sided with Piety on a sex-based pay disparities charge, determining that Drexel willfully paid her less than some of her male peers. Drexel is appealing that ruling.

But in a new lawsuit, filed last month in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Piety said Drexel was “banishing her from campus” in retaliation. Her 2025 spring seminar course, which was traditionally taught in person, was changed to an “online-asynchronous” format.

She further alleges that Drexel was willing to discuss a settlement of her initial suit only if she gave up her tenure-track position and left the university.

The legal saga is a reminder that even though academia has a reputation for being a “liberal, woke bastion,” in many universities, “old-school discrimination” persists, said Brian Foley, the professor’s attorney and husband.

“Women are still discriminated against in many institutions of higher learning, including by pay,” Foley said.

Drexel declined to comment.

In the Drexel Department of English and Philosophy, “men rule,” Piety’s 2022 complaint said.

In addition to the claim that male faculty members doing similar work in the department earned more than her, the professor listed instances in which she felt unsupported by the department and that her expertise was “devalued,” which she says amounted to academic bullying and discrimination.

Drexel denied the allegations. A judge’s opinion in the case quotes a Drexel representatives saying the department includes people with “sharp elbows” who are “difficult,” but that doesn’t mean bad behavior was directed at Piety or “women in general, based on their gender.”

In 2024, District Judge Wendy Beetlestone dismissed most of the counts ahead of trial.

The events that Piety attributed to gender-based harassment were too spread out over the years to show a “pervasive” pattern, Beetlestone wrote. And the professor didn’t show in the 2022 lawsuit that any alleged retaliatory actions by Drexel led to “economic loss, change to the terms of her employment, or really any injury or harm beyond feelings of insult, annoyance, and frustration.”

The only count that the judge didn’t dismiss was the charge that Piety had been paid less than male colleagues because of her gender.

Drexel said in filings that pay differences between Piety and male professors were explained by the latter’s administrative roles.

“The undisputed evidence will show that at Drexel, both men and women who take on these administrative roles receive this benefit,” the university’s attorney told the jurors, according to a transcript of the trial.

Pay figures are redacted from the available trial transcripts.

Following the January trial, Beetlestone entered a $354,993.42 judgment against Drexel in favor of Piety.

While Drexel is appealing the verdict, Piety has filed a new lawsuit that contends that the university is “banishing her from campus” as retaliation for the original lawsuit and judgment.

The professor claims that her situation at Drexel has worsened. Drexel changed her upper-level course to a set-up in which students watch taped lectures on their own time, which the complaint calls “a very un-seminar like format.”

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In addition, the suit says, Drexel refused to adjust her pay following the judgment, forced Piety to teach introductory classes, rejected her when she volunteered for committees, and gave her an unfair performance review.

She said that department leadership refuses to acknowledge her accomplishments and that the university didn’t support a conference she held with Yale University.

“Defendants are trying to marginalize, frustrate, and humiliate Dr. Piety — and drive her to quit, despite that driving her out of Drexel would deprive students of a world-renowned scholar and effective teacher,” the complaint said.

But Piety has no intention of leaving the institution, the lawsuit says. For one, there are few tenure-track positions in philosophy across the country and leaving Drexel would be akin to ending her academic career, according to the complaint.

“Leaving Drexel means giving up her hard-earned career, a career she enjoys and finds fulfilling,” the complaint says.