The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

26 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL using sustained pressure to achieve our aims.” Implicit and explicit bias in the performance evaluation and promotion system was one of WAO’s primary targets. In 1980, the group circulated Lois W. Roth’s research paper, “Nice Girl or Pushy Bitch: Two Roads to Nonpromotion,” charging that per- formance ratings often institutionalized discrimination against women and remained crucial obstacles to equal opportunity and promotion. It is necessary to “help men understand,” Roth states, “that their ‘kind and supportive’ remarks about women officers often perpetuate myths and values that get read in the promotion process as weakness, and that in calling us ‘pushy’ or ‘abrasive’ when we are properly ambitious, they are using a double standard that does us great disservice and, ultimately, does them dishonor.” WAO achievements include a reduction in the inequity in overseas living arrangements, increased recruitment of women into the Foreign Service, increased representation of women on promotion boards, elimination of references to gender and marital status in performance evaluations and establishment of the spouses’ “skills bank”—the precursor of today’s Family Liaison Office. The Palmer Case Makes Progress In 1985, the U.S. District Court decided the class-action suit in favor of the State Department, but two years later the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that decision in favor of the plaintiffs. Having been found to have discriminatory personnel practices (e.g., women were assigned more often to consular work than political; women were disproportionately refused assignment as deputy chief of mission; and women’s nominations for “supe- rior” awards were downgraded to “meritorious” awards), State agreed to make changes. Foreign Service hiring practices had yet to be examined, however, and in 1989 the Foreign Service entrance examination process came under scrutiny. In a court order that year the U.S. District Court found that “the Department of State had discrimi- nated against women in the administration of a written exami- nation that applicants for positions in the Foreign Service were obliged to take.” The court mandated that State not use Foreign Service Officer Test results from 1985 to 1987. State was ordered to grade the 1988 exams to eliminate discrimination against women, and the 1989 exam was canceled. In 1991, the same court again found discrimination in the FSOT. As restitution, 390 women who had the highest non-pass- ing scores for the 1991–1994 Foreign Service written examination were invited to participate in the oral phase of the application process in 2002. Of those who participated, 11 were admitted to the Foreign Service with back pay plus interest and credited years of service toward retirement. Through the 1990s and 2000s, State worked to improve personnel procedures and processes as mandated by the court. In 2007, the court ordered State and Palmer to begin to settle the suit, which was finally dismissed in 2010—34 years after it had been filed and 42 years after Palmer’s first EEO complaint. In the end, State had either ceased the unfair practice or made progress on such problems as unfair out-of-cone and initial cone assignments and underassigning of women to stretch and DCM assignments; disproportionate promotions; discriminatory hir- ing practices and processes; and reclassification of awards. State also introduced an improved performance evaluation form and instituted a high-level Council for Equality in the Workplace, which is now the Secretary’s Office of Civil Rights. None of those named in the case, nor anyone in a leadership position at the State Department, was ever held accountable for the systematic discrimination the court found. The Scant 33 Percent In September 2015, Foreign Service Director General Arnold Chacón trumpeted on his Twitter feed that one in three chiefs of mission is a woman. The figure shows progress from the past, no doubt, but is less impressive in light of the fact that 40 percent of Foreign Service officers are women. The current cohort of female ambassadors also includes a large number of political appoin- tees, rather than women promoted from within the Foreign Service. “Currently EW@S’s challenge is to demonstrate to State Women at Work Women comprise: 50.8% of the U.S. population 47% of the U.S. workforce 40% of Foreign Service officers 35% of Foreign Service members, including officers and specialists at all Foreign Service agencies 33% of U.S. ambassadors 31% of senior State Department positions Sources: U.S. Census, 2010; Department of Labor, 2010; Department of State, Office of the Director General.