In 2008, plaintiff Jennifer Ohlund was hired by California State University, Los Angeles, to be an assistant professor of English. Ohlund was hired from Harvard University under the requirement that she would complete her Ph.D. within a few years of her commencement. However, over the course of her six-year employment, she was unable to complete her Ph.D. and, in 2012, she did not submit her personnel file for her annual evaluation, a University requirement for continued employment beyond 2014. As a result, Ohlund was terminated. Ohlund sued California State University, Los Angeles, and the Chair of the English Department, Ruben Quintero. Ohlund alleged that she was subjected to gender discrimination and retaliation, resulting in a hostile work environment. Ohlund claimed that she was unable to finish her Ph.D. because she was assigned more work than her male counterparts, causing her to not have enough time to complete it. She also claimed that Quintero threatened that if she continued to complain about workload inequity, he would have to give her a negative review in the retention process. Ohlund further claimed that her decision to not submit her personnel file for renewal had nothing to do with the fact that she was “all-but-dissertation” and had not yet received her Ph.D., and alleged that the defendants admitted that her doctoral dissertation was ready to be submitted. She also alleged that she had been told at hire that she had six years to complete her doctoral dissertation and that she was only in year four at the time she was advised that her employment would be terminated. Thus, Ohlund claimed that she felt it would have been futile to turn in her personnel file for renewal because she would not have been evaluated fairly. In addition, she claimed she had also been told that she needed to file a union grievance to address the retaliation and harassment issues and that if such a grievance were filed and a violation was found, she could then submit the file and have Quintero removed from her review. Ohlund alleged that she filed a grievance, but that the university decided not to investigate the claim that Quintero’s threat to write a negative evaluation was in retaliation for her complaints. Defense counsel contended that Ohlund was hired under the requirement that she would complete her Ph.D. within a few years of her commencement. However, counsel argued that Ohlund did not ask for continuation of her employment, as she did not submit her personnel file for review. Counsel also argued that the other full-time professors all had Ph.D.s, while Ohlund would have been the only one with only a Bachelor’s degree. Defense counsel noted that over a dozen university employees testified that there was no significant difference in her workload compared to that of other assistant professors, nor was there a gender bias., Ohlund claimed that she suffered emotional distress as a result of her treatment at the university and that her termination caused her to suffer a loss of income. Thus, Ohlund sought recovery for past and future loss of earnings, and for emotional distress damages.