The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2020 27 A Look at the Record Despite a decades-old legal mandate, diversity has simply not been a priority at the State Department. BY R I CHARD A . F I GUEROA Richard A. Figueroa has been with the U.S. Foreign Service for more than 30 years as a Foreign Service officer, a re-employed annuitant and an eligible family member. He has served in Moscow, Brussels, Managua and Dili, among many other overseas and Washington, D.C., assignments. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law. He represented himself in a 10-year legal battle against the State Department over discrimination in promotions, winning a landmark employment law decision, Figueroa v. Pompeo , from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2019. FOCUS ON ADVANCING DIVERSITY & INCLUSION D iversity problems at the State Department are not new. The Government Account- ability Office report, GAO-20-237, “State Department: Additional Steps Are Needed to Identify Potential Barriers to Diversity,” published in January, echoes findings that were first reported by GAO in a June 1989 report bluntly titled “State Department: Minorities and Women Underrepresented in the Foreign Service.” That women and minorities at State in the 21st century still suffer from systemic discrimination in assignments and pro- motions (recruitment to a much lesser extent) reflects the low priority State human resources staff and senior leadership assign to equal employment opportunity (EEO) compliance, and their attitude about the fact that a legacy system, predating even the 40-year-old Foreign Service Act of 1980, whose roots harken back to when the State Department was exclusively white and male, is still functioning perfectly. The State Department’s decadeslong resistance to implemen- tation of even basic EEO standards is as legendary as it is dismay- ing. Criticism of State’s record comes from all corners: • The State Department’s resistance to change earned harsh criticism from Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin, who presided in the Thomas discrimination case, a class action suit brought in 1986 by African American Foreign Service officers and resolved by consent decree in 1996. “The arrogance of your office is State’s Problems Are Not New: