New York: Sheena S Iyengar, bestselling author of The Art of Choosing and Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, has been accused of "disturbing gender-based discrimination behavior and retaliation". An alumnus is suing her for assigning only "female" jobs like applying makeup and booking restaurants.
According to the New York Post, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Columbia University in 2017. The publication quoted her as saying that Iyengar only assigned Blackwell demeaning female jobs and gave research-based tasks to men. She alleged that Iyengar only gave her "personal and supportive" tasks since they were "better suited" for the "female gender".
"These tasks included applying Iyengar's makeup and booking restaurants for her romantic dates," said Blackwell. She added her male counterparts did not encounter any of the obstacles she was forced to overcome. She also claimed that the research duties assigned to her make coworkers were not even related to his job description.
Blackwell's contract with Columbia was terminated in 2019. She claimed that finding a job after this became difficult for her due to mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
Upon filing a complaint, Iyengar claimed she was the one being perpetually bullied. "If there was discrimination in this office, it was, it is, the discrimination that I felt as a blind professor who was being perpetually bullied by my employee and does not accommodate the very needs of this position."
Iyengar is known for her research on many facets of decision-making including: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision-making. She has also done TED talks on choice. She was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa as a child, a degenerative disease. She was completely blind by the age of 16. In 1997, she earned her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Stanford on "Choice and its Discontents." Next year, she received the Best Dissertation Award for 1998 from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. She is considered to be an expert in the field.