A nine-year investigation into discrimination at Stanford, which had left the University in suspense since the complaint was filed in 1999, finally came to a close, Stanford officials declared Wednesday. The Department of Labor (DOL) completed its review without finding evidence to back the accusations against the University.

Stanford issued a press release announcing the decision, stating, “The Department of Labor reported to Stanford that none of the individual complaints investigated resulted in a finding of discrimination or retaliation, nor was there any evidence of any systemic discrimination in the university’s policies and practices in the areas of initial appointments, promotion, termination, work environment or compensation.”

The investigation was set in motion in 1999 by a class-action complaint from sixteen female scholars at Stanford, and it proceeded on two parallel tracks: an examination of possible gender discrimination in specific cases, and a general compliance review of the University. Government regulations dictate that any class-action complaint should trigger a compliance review if one has not been conducted in the last two years.

Since the case officially opened, the set of plaintiffs has evolved — some complainants joined and others dropped out, leaving only five by the investigation’s close. Seven related complaints were not addressed as part of the inquiry due to issues of jurisdiction.

The investigation came to a close in December 2007, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The DOL found that there was not discrimination in the case of the specific complaints, and determined that there was insufficient evidence for any judgment, positive or negative, in the case of the University at large.

Interest in the investigation rose due to the possibility of Stanford’s government funding being placed in jeopardy. The DOL indicated, however, that potential sanctions would have been less drastic, and would have focused on compensation for acts of discrimination.

“We would not have been looking at taking away funding,” said Deanne Amaden, a spokesperson for the Department of Labor’s San Francisco office. “That’s an extreme case.” In this case, she said, “We would remedy the situation through back-pay, and negotiating to get [complainants] a position equal to what they would have had.”

The length of the nine-year investigation also drew attention. The DOL believed the length of the investigation stemmed mostly from the complications of reviewing practices at an academic institution, and some difficulties in gathering information.

“The length was unusual,” Amaden sad. “But it’s legitimate to say that it’s more complex when you’re doing this with a university, and looking at something like the tenure process. There was also some resistance initially, in obtaining documents and data.”

The withdrawal of many of the initial complainants from the case, many early on in the investigation, also hindered efforts to collect information.

“I think that a lot of the information went with each specific complaint,” Amaden said. “When people dropped out, we were no longer getting information, and everything we needed.”

The investigation began at a time when interest in discrimination at Stanford was high — just following the publication in 1999 of “Walking Out on the Boys,” a book dealing with issues of gender discrimination in higher education. Its writer, Frances Conley, was a former professor at the Stanford Medical School who had retired partially due to concern over gender issues. Conley has since returned to Stanford, and is an Emeritus Professor at the Medical School.

The investigation found instances of wrongdoing at Stanford only in areas of data collection. The University’s general counsel, Debra Zumwalt, said that these complaints led to improvements in the University’s internal tracking of faculty hiring and issues of diversity.

“One of the violations had to do with how we go about getting the information, including identification of gender and ethnicity,” Zumwalt said. “We’ve since set up systems to better track the information. There’s now a standardized process for collecting the data.”

“Second, it wasn’t clear who had overall responsibility for monitoring these issues,” she said, “so we created the Diversity & Access Office.”

Since the beginning of the investigation Stanford has also coordinated with other schools in gathering information. The University shares numbers with the “MIT 9” consortium, and it participates in data exchange with the Association of American Universities. This information is kept confidential.

“In the early 2000s we conducted our own survey, cooperating with dozens of peer institutions,” said Vice Provost of Faculty Development and Diversity Patricia Jones. “We collected that and looked at it specifically for benchmark purposes.”

24.5 percent of Stanford faculty are women, according to information gathered for the annual presentation from the Provost’s office to the Faculty Senate on diversity. While data from that report will be given in more detail in May, administrators reported that they were pleased with the University’s progress and happy that the investigation has drawn to a close.

“We’re thrilled that it’s finally over after nine years,” Jones said. “A lot of people put in a lot of time on looking at the data, and we’re pleased at the finding.”