FBI Settles Sex-Bias Suit Involving Non-Agents and Management Posts

M arijke van der Heide worked at FBI headquarters from 1982 through 1999 but could never get a promotion into a top-tier job. So she left the FBI and went to work in the administrative arm of the federal court system.

"I enjoyed all my years in the FBI," she said in an interview. "I also felt that I could have still made some career moves if there were possibilities for me. But I didn't have the opportunity."

Van der Heide, a General Schedule 14 program manager for foreign-language testing and training, found closed doors when she tried to move up to the next level, GS-15. She was told that "only agents can talk to agents," an apparent justification for keeping "support," or non-agent, staffers from rising into the FBI's management ranks.

Today, Van der Heide is one of about 3,000 potential members of a class-action settlement that began in 1998 when an FBI employee, Patricia Boord , filed a sex-discrimination complaint on behalf of GS-12 and above female support employees who had applied for but were not selected for GS-14 and GS-15 administrative and managerial positions or who were deterred from applying.

Van der Heide's experience "was an instance of hitting a glass ceiling," said Maia Caplan , a lawyer with Kator, Parks & Weiser PLLC, who represented the Boord class.

The Boord complaint alleged that women were discriminated against because administrative and managerial positions were open to only FBI special agents, even if the responsibilities of the position could have been done by a non-agent.

The complaint asked why positions were reserved for agents when there were lawyers, laboratory scientists, accountants, linguists and other support staffers who could do the job as well and might even be better qualified.

Litigation and mediation in the case took nearly a decade, ending with an agreement in May between the government and the class-action members.

In a decision approving the settlement, Administrative Judge Richard E. Schneider noted that the FBI disputed statistical evidence presented in the case and had asserted that the agency "appropriately restricted" certain jobs for special agents, who carry weapons and conduct investigations.

FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak Jr. said in an e-mail that the agency, during settlement negotiations, began reviewing GS-14 and GS-15 jobs held by special agents in the headquarters division and had converted "a number of the positions" so that they could be filled by non-agents. The FBI's internal determinations will be reviewed by an independent expert as part of the settlement agreement.

The settlement agreement, which is being implemented, permits eligible employees and former employees to file for individual relief, including promotions and back pay, Kodak said. The agreement applies to "female professional support staff" employed from June 1996 to May 2006.

Two class representatives, Boord and Maryvictoria Pyne , have been awarded payments, he said. The FBI will not disclose the amount of the payments for Privacy Act reasons, he said.

Van der Heide said she hopes the class-action complaint, which was filed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, helps ensure that "people have equal job opportunity when they have equal skills and doesn't mix in requirements that have nothing to do with skills."

She added: "The FBI may lose opportunities to get or maintain the type of employees who are very valuable to the FBI if they don't change their ways. By not making the FBI a competitive place, some of the best women may pass up a job in the FBI and go elsewhere."

Retirements

Susan B. Miller , director of academic investments at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, retired July 1 after 36 years of public service.

Ross Simons , director of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center at the Smithsonian Institution, retired July 21 after 35 years of federal service.

Please join me at noon today for a discussion of federal employee and retiree issues on Federal Diary Live athttp://www.washingtonpost.com. My e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.