EX-PROFESSORS SUE OVER CSU RETIREMENT.

Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer

Retired professors - including at least one from CSUN - filed suit Tuesday against the California State University system for allegedly forcing them to retire when they turned 70.

CSU officials argue those educators entered an early retirement program that allowed them to work part time for a limited period.

``It's an agreement they signed and the important thing is they benefited from it,'' said CSU spokesman Ken Swisher. ``We didn't make them retire, (by signing the agreement) they chose to retire.''

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the age discrimination suit on behalf of about 40 professors across the state. The suit claims CSU violated a federal law in 1994 that prohibits forcing employees to retire because of their age.

``Our position is the law has changed and all those people who entered the (early retirement) program should be allowed to continue past age 70,'' said Jonathan T. Peck, a commission attorney in San Francisco.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court, is on behalf of retired professors who entered CSU's Faculty Early Retirement Program under the old law.

The program was created to serve two missions. It offered tenured professors a chance to cut their class loads to part-time teaching while receiving half their salary and part of their retirement benefits. And it allowed the state to save half the cost of high salaries for long-tenured professors.

Sol Buchalter, who taught finance at CSUN since the day the campus opened in 1958, said he only agreed to retire by age 70 because the law back then allowed mandated retirement by that age.

He taught part time for 15 years until two years ago, when he was told to retire according to his FERP contract. ``When I signed that I thought I had to retire by 70,'' Buchalter said.

Whether he and others would have continued teaching isn't the question, said Buchalter, now 72. ``I would've liked to have had the option,'' he said.

Swisher said the program must have an age limitation. ``Some people may be getting just as much compensation but be working less. To some people it might not seem fair,'' he said.

But Peck says he believes it's the professors he represents who are being treated unfairly.

``They can fire someone if they are not capable, senile, or losing dexterity, but it just can't be a broad (age-based) policy,'' Peck said.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Sol Buchalter

Opposes age basis