The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

24 JULY-AUGUST 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL In 1970 the corps of FSOs was still 95 percent male (2,945 of 3,084) and only 1 percent Black (34 of 3,084). All female FSOs were single and, until 1971, were required—apparently by administrative practice, not by law—to resign if they wed. Women and Black officers were restricted in where they could serve. Women were almost never sent to Islamic nations (lest they give offense) or to communist countries (lest they be sexu- ally entrapped and blackmailed). Black officers were dispro- portionately assigned to Africa and parts of Latin America, a problem that persists today. A departmental task force in 1977 described the public view of the Service as “elitist, self-satisfied, a walled-in barony populated by smug white males, an old-boy system in which women and minorities cannot possibly hope to be treated with equity.” Pressure groups began to form among aggrieved employees during the 1960s and 1970s. The Women’s Action Organization came together around 1970. Informal discussions among Black officers in foreign affairs agencies led to the formation of the Thursday Luncheon Group in 1973. These groups lent their sup- port to two class-action suits filed in federal court. One, led by FSO Alison Palmer, charged the Department of State with discrimina- tion against women in hiring, promotion and assignments; the other, led by FSOWalter Thomas, grew out of a finding by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC, chaired at the time by future Supreme Court justice ClarenceThomas) that the State Department “typically” discriminated against Black offi- cers in assignments, performance evaluations and promotions. The department fought these cases long and hard. The women’s case in one form or another ran on for more than 20 years, with the plaintiffs winning court orders that forced changes in department policies including, eventually, changes in the Foreign Service written exam. The Thomas case needed 10 years of litigation to produce a settlement awarding the plaintiffs retroactive pay and promotions. The presiding judge rebuked the department: “You shouldn’t be having an adversarial relation- ship with these people just because of their color. You should be … doing what’s right.” Affirmative Action These cases were still in the courts when Congress passed the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which governs the Service to this day. Like its 1946 predecessor, the 1980 act calls for a Foreign Service “representative of the American people.” But it also instructs the department to “pursue equal employment opportunity through affirmative action” and to manage its hiring, promotions and assignments “in accordance with merit principles.” “Affirmative action” is a roomy phrase. When it is understood as measures against discrimination, it leads in one direction; but when it is understood as steps against inequality, it leads somewhere else entirely. With regard to the first, it is hard to dispute Chief Justice John Roberts, writing in 2007: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” But Justice Harry Blackmun, con- cerned with equality, had a powerful and opposite argument: “In order to get beyond racism,” he wrote in 1978, “we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently. We cannot … let the equal protection clause perpetuate racial superiority.” Efforts to address inequalities by preferring members of some groups over In its social attitudes and behavior, the Foreign Service has always been a follower, not a leader. Personnel of the Department of State in 1936—all white and overwhelmingly male. AFSA/FSJSUPPLEMENTNOVEMBER 1936