U.S. Offers $508 Million in Sex-Bias Case

By IRVIN MOLOTSKY, NYTimes on the Web, March 23, 2000

WASHINGTON, March 22 -- The federal government agreed today to pay $508 million to settle a sex discrimination suit brought by 1,100 women who charged that they were denied jobs and promotions with the agency that disseminates news and information about the United States abroad. If it is accepted by the federal judge who has overseen the lawsuit, it will be the largest settlement ever recorded in a federal sex-discrimination case. Each of the women would receive at least $450,000.

The suit was filed 23 years ago by reporters, editors, announcers, producers and others against the Voice of America, the government-run radio service that offers news and entertainment programs to listeners outside the United States, and its former parent agency, the United States Information Agency.

"We have won a just war in the land of freedom," said Jahanare Hasan, a former broadcaster in Pakistan who was turned down when she applied for a job with the Voice of America's radio service for Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan. "In the Bangla service, only men were allowed to announce the news," said Susan Brackshaw, a lawyer for the women.

While the suit was filed in 1977, it covers the period of 1974 to 1984, which meant that the allegations of discrimination continued long after the litigation began.

In its own newscasts this afternoon, the Voice of America, which describes life in the United States and promotes the virtues of democracy and equality in dozens of languages to a worldwide audience, broadcast the story of its own shortcomings.

In a straightforward script for the English-language newscast at 3:45 p.m., Eastern time, the news service acknowledged that the case "disclosed that U.S.I.A. and V.O.A. regularly manipulated the hiring process to exclude women."

"The plaintiffs alleged that the agencies resorted in some cases to test fraud, altering test scores and destroying personnel and test files," it went on.

Despite the allegations of fraud and document destruction, a spokesman for Voice of America, Joseph D. O'Connell Jr., said the charges had not been proved and that, as a result, no managers had been disciplined.

The basic award of $508 million is the largest settlement of any employment discrimination lawsuit, public or private. It dwarfs the next largest settlement, $176 million awarded in 1996 to 1,400 Texaco employees in a race discrimination suit.

In addition to the settlement, the government has already been assessed $22.7 million for 46 women in the group who had won when their cases went to administrative hearings. Two other women lost their cases.

Lawyers for the women said it was that record of 46 victories and only 2 losses that encouraged the government to drop its insistence on a separate hearing for each of the 1,100 complaints and prevented Hartman v. Albright, as this case is known, from becoming a modern-day equivalent of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Dickens's "Bleak House."

"They did the math," said Bruce Fredrickson, one of the women's lawyers, who took on the class action in 1977, his first lawsuit after graduating from law school.

Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the government will also pay the women's legal fees, which have amounted to $12 million so far, with several million more yet to be paid. When all the awards, legal fees and costs are paid, Mr. Fredrickson said, the amount paid by the government will be about $550 million, not counting the government's own legal costs.

The claimants decided to divide the settlement equally and to offer payments even to the two women who lost their cases in administrative hearings.

That will mean an award to make up for lost salaries, pensions and benefits of at least $450,000 for each woman, Mr. Fredrickson said. Those who got less than that at their hearings will have the difference made up, while those who won more will keep the extra money. "The cost of discrimination can be enormous," Mr. Fredrickson said at the news conference, which was held at the National Press Club.

Since the litigation began, the United States Information Agency has gone out of existence, and the Voice of America is now overseen by a different agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Discrimination against women was so pervasive, Mr. Fredrickson said, that women applying for jobs at the Voice of America were told outright that managers were seeking to fill positions with men.
"There were open and hostile comments from men," Mr. Fredrickson said. "There was manipulation of the system. Tests were rigged, scores were changed, less qualified men were hired and men were preselected before the jobs were posted."

At other times, he said, "Women were told, 'We have enough women,' 'It is not good to have too many women,' and 'We need male voices.' "

Ms. Brackshaw cited one of the 46 cases won at the hearing level, that of Dona De Sanctis, a broadcaster and writer with a Ph.D. She took a test and was told that a man got the job because he had "a terrific score." "The only problem was he never took the test," Ms. Brackshaw said, "and another job went to the son of a V.O.A. official when the test was rigged."

Mr. O'Connell, the Voice of America spokesman, said in an interview that the agency and broadcasting board were committed to "an equitable workplace" and that "managers and supervisors take eight hours per year of training on equal opportunity, sensitivity and appropriate hiring that is not discriminatory."

One of the claimants, Judith Ambrose, who sued because she was turned down for a job as a broadcast technician although she had worked as one previously, said that discrimination still existed at the broadcast agency but might end because of the settlement.

"This kind of thing is going to bring a wake-up call," said Ms. Ambrose, who works at the new parent broadcasting agency.

Carolee Brady, who was listed as the lead plaintiff under her former married name of Hartman, has a Ph.D. and applied in 1977 for a job as a writer at the United States Information Agency. According to her suit, she was told by an editor, "Well, they were thinking about hiring a man for the position."

She said today: "A man told me he was not going to hire me because I am a woman. It's a delicious victory."

Rose Kobylinski, a Polish-language broadcaster, recalled today that she was denied a job after being told by the Voice of America that "your voice is too old.' "

That was 20 years ago and Ms. Kobylinski, now 79, got the settlement and the last laugh. "I now have a radio program in Chicago," she said, "and my voice is not too old."