The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found evidence that the University of Denver Sturm College of Law has for decades paid female faculty less than their male colleagues.

The law school may owe as much as $1.2 million in back pay to female professors and could be liable for attorney costs and more for violating the Equal Pay Act, according to Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that helped represent longtime Denver law professor and complainant Lucy Marsh.

“I have considered all the evidence obtained during the investigation and find there is reasonable cause to believe there is a violation of Title VII in that there appears to be a continuing pattern or practice at the Sturm College of Law, dating back to as early as 1973, of compensating female law professors less than their male counterparts,” wrote EEOC Denver field office director John Lowrie in an Aug. 28 letter to the university.