A female UC Santa Barbara professor alleges she was underpaid by nearly $3 million while a less-experienced white male colleague earned substantially more, according to a lawsuit.
Edwina Barvosa, a Harvard-educated professor of applied social and political theory who has taught at UCSB since 1998, says she was paid far less than a man hired eight years after her to perform the same job, according to a complaint filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in June.
The lawsuit refers to the colleague only as “Professor Y.” The Daily Nexus, a student-run newspaper, first reported the case.
Professor Y received $232,050 in total compensation in 2023, while Barvosa earned $150,317, according to the suit. The gap widened in 2024, when he was paid $251,700 and she received $157,000—a difference of $94,700.
Barvosa alleges she was shorted at least $991,478 in base pay, a figure that rises to roughly $2.96 million with interest. Her attorneys argued that the financial impact could exceed $30 million when lost pension benefits are compounded over the next 39 years.
The complaint says the two professors share similar backgrounds: Both were raised in working-class families and are of Mexican American heritage. Barvosa also claims she has approximately 10 more years of experience.
“Dr. Barvosa has suffered and continues to suffer extensive harm as a result of defendants’ unlawful employment practices, including, but not limited to, extensive professional, financial, and non-economic damages, as well as physical injuries that have now led to life-threatening illnesses and related emotional harm,” the lawsuit alleges.
The defendants named in the lawsuit include the UC Regents, UC President James Milliken, UCSB Chancellor Dennis Assanis, Executive Dean Pierre Wiltzius and Social Sciences Dean Charles Hale.
The complaint accuses them of violating California’s Equal Pay Act and alleges discrimination, harassment, whistleblower retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Barvosa is seeking back pay, damages, punitive damages and a court order preventing the university from claiming ownership of her scholarly work.
UC Santa Barbara declined to comment. The UC Regents did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
According to the filing, Barvosa raised concerns about a “gender pay gap” with the executive dean of the College of Letters and Science. The dean allegedly acknowledged that she was underpaid but told her there was nothing he could do.
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The dean then determined that Barvosa did not merit either a $200 raise or promotion to full professor, the lawsuit says.
He cited the fact that her book had not been fully accepted by Cambridge University Press and that she had not spent four years at her current step, according to the complaint.
Yet six to 12 months earlier, the same dean had approved Professor Y’s promotion even though his book was also unfinished, the suit alleges.
The filing characterizes the differing treatment as “nothing more than… gender discrimination.” Barvosa formally complained about the pay disparity in December 2020, according to the lawsuit.
On June 14, 2021, she alleges that she received an unjustified reprimand. That same day, she was passed over for a prestigious endowed chair, which was awarded to Professor Y.
The lawsuit also portrays Barvosa’s workplace as hostile:
The complaint also said her department was known for tension between white and minority faculty. It describes a professor who “insisted on the right to routinely use the ‘n-word’ slur, despite graduate student complaints.”
This year, her own department voted 9-0 to advance her, according to the suit. The school’s top personnel committee recommended no raise at all.
Barvosa claimed she lost part of a finger and suffered a permanent knee injury. She says years of workplace stress triggered a heart attack on Dec. 9, 2024, despite her having no other risk factors.
The suit comes as UCSB faces backlash over another discrimination controversy, this time involving its Alpha Phi chapter, whose members accused a volunteer recruitment adviser from the sorority’s national organization of sidelining women of color during fall recruitment.
Members alleged noticeably diverse group of prospective recruits disappeared from the candidate pool, while current sisters of color were left off recruitment schedules.
The adviser was removed, and the university said discrimination reports are reviewed by its Office of Discrimination and Harassment Prevention, but did not confirm whether it is investigating.