The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2020 37 W. Averell Harriman Award for an Entry-Level Officer Lindsay Dana Ending Gender Bias on Visa Application Forms D uring her assignment as a consular officer in Bogotá, Lindsay Dana saw that female non-immigrant visa (NIV) applicants were prompted by the online application form through a shorter series of questions than was asked of male applicants, causing important information gaps for consular adjudicators. Ms. Dana worked with post management and the Bureau of Consular Affairs to push for a fix, resulting in a depart- mentwide correction to equalize NIV online application questions for all genders as of June 2020. For years, the DS-160 online application form had been configured to ask male applicants a more extended series of questions related to their previous employment, international travel, education, and participation in the military or in paramili- tary groups. Women were asked a much shorter and less informa- tive series of questions. This discrepancy had no apparent rational basis; it was based simply on outdated gender profiles. It was par- ticularly troublesome in Colombia, where travel, education and employment are highly relevant to evaluating an applicant’s ties, and where large paramilitary organizations, whose membership is estimated at 20 to 30 percent female, have operated for years. “Since consular officers seek—often under time pressure—to establish an applicant’s economic ties to their home country, I saw that women, who might have had significant work experi- ence, multiple degrees or diverse travel, were being inher- ently disadvantaged by this configuration,” Ms. Dana tells the FSJ . “Additionally, from a national security standpoint, it was concerning that consular officers had a more limited capacity to judge security threats from female applicants.” Ms. Dana noticed the problem and brought it to the atten- tion of the consular section’s management. She worked with management to make the case to the Bureau of Consular Affairs for a change, noting both the issue of inequality and the national security importance of asking questions that could highlight concerns of visa misuse, technology transfer, paramilitary ties or unusual travel. “I did what was in my power at post to mitigate these concerns, and devel- oped training for my colleagues on ways to balance those gender inequalities by verbally asking additional ques- tions during the interview of female applicants,” she says, given that she was unsure of what final action would be taken and when. “After written advocacy and consis- tent follow-up with Washington offices over the next year, I was thrilled to see the requested change take final effect in early June 2020. The worldwide online applica- tion form now asks both male and female applicants the same full series of questions.” Ms. Dana’s persistent advocacy for this change and her willingness to challenge the way things had always been done played a big role in prioritizing this fix. Every visa decision is a national security decision, CA stresses, and the additional infor- mation adjudicators now have, thanks to Ms. Dana’s advocacy, means these decisions will be better informed. “The gender-specific configuration of prompts was an unfor- tunate relic that disadvantaged female applicants from explain- ing their full background, and placed higher security reporting standards on male applicants,” she observes. Ms. Dana offers thanks to “those who worked tirelessly inWash- ington to bring this change into effect. I’m grateful tomy consular managers who supportedmy advocacy, and tomy colleagues who followed this issue withme and celebrated its correction.” She also talks about the importance of dissent, even when it seems too difficult to change a system. “We can either shrug and let issues continue to cause problems for the department, or we can dissent. I hope this example helps encourage my fellow entry-level officers to choose the latter,” she tells the Journal . Lindsay Dana. Lindsay Dana in the Harry S Truman Building.