"We were much better prepared," he adds. "Frankly, I don't understand what the Harvard lawyers were thinking of, because we had 20 witnesses on their witness list, and they never offered any reasonable settlement offer at all. They were pretty confident that they were going to win the trial."

But Ryan says Harvard took the legal challenge seriously from the beginning.

"I have one rule and that is never underestimate your opponent," he says. "And I didn't underestimate anyone here."

Back to Court

As it pursues aggressive appeals through Massachusetts' highest court, Harvard is clearly taking Abramian's case seriously now. If the verdict is upheld, it will be the first time Harvard has been found to have discriminated against an employee.

The University is well within its legal rights in not paying Abramian the jury verdict, since the appeals process in the case is ongoing and a new trial on at least part of the damages against the University seems inevitable.

Abramian's trial judge has already acknowledged that he failed to instruct the jury that it had to find the University's actions "outrageous" in order to award punitive damages, a sum that would attempt to prevent Harvard from discriminating again.

The University also believes the trial judge committed other errors in his jury instructions during the trial, which would invalidate the jury's decision on compensatory damages to Abramian.