FOR CENTURIES, the voice of America and the voice of male America have been one and the same. The shape of the Washington Monument is proof enough. Last Thursday, the federal government paid $508 million for its sexist legacy in the largest employment discrimination settlement ever -- a settlement that could have been avoided just as easily as the hypocrisy that caused it.
The lawsuit originally was brought against the United States Information Agency by Carolee Brady in 1977. Brady was turned down for an editorship at the USIA magazine and was told that the managers were looking to fill the slot with a man. From 1977 to 1984 such behavior continued and 1100 women signed on to a class action suit against USIA and Voice of America, two government-run international media outlets.
The suit and subsequent settlement make clear that the true motto of the federal government has been "Everybody's got a price" or "Every ignorant action can be paid off by taxpayers." Unfortunately, the USIA/VOA case proves that the consequences of adhering to this motto are not only financial; they are also immoral, socially biased, and elitist.
The VOA Charter, ratified in 1976, reads, "VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions" (http://www.ibb.gov/pubaff/voacharter.html). That may sound nice, but it's a lie.
One of the women that sued VOA claimed she lost a job to an encyclopedia salesman despite her experience as a translator and a journalist. Another woman was told that she couldn't be an on-air personality for VOA because her "voice is too old." These are not the actions of a government organization that sought to "represent America." They are the actions of a government organization that claimed -- and still claims today -- to "represent America." There's a big difference.
Obviously, it's far easier to proclaim a belief than it is to follow that belief out. This, however, should be the government's job. If they couldn't do it then, how can they now expect anyone else to? If government organizations used discriminatory hiring practices, how can they justify censuring others for doing the same thing?
VOA and USIA's flair for dishonesty is particularly troubling because this dishonesty was manifested over international airwaves and onto millions of foreign TVs and radios.
Large regions of the world were treated to good, old-fashioned American hypocrisy. In the midst of all this hypocrisy lay the VOA mission statement, "The long-range interests of the United States are served by communications directly with the peoples of the world by radio." What those interests are is another complicated question.
Regrettably, the government is telling the truth when it claims to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people." The sexist USIA/VOA employees were of the people, the legal bill for their misbehavior will be paid by the people, and all of it was done for the people.
On the other side of this miserable coin, one can argue that the real problem is Americans' love for litigation and not their love for discrimination. Some argue that such issues as sexism should be resolved through legislative change and not through civil proceedings. Again, however, the government has set the tone by often turning to civil suits itself. When guns hurt people, as they are often wont to do, the government sues the gun industry. When tobacco surprises everyone by causing cancer, the government sues the tobacco industry. When a government organization like VOA consistently discriminated against women, it was inevitable that the women would sue the government.
They had no choice. It's hard to get an organization, particularly a government organization, to turn on itself. Just as very few lawbreakers would sentence themselves firmly, very few lawmakers would make or enforce laws that they intend to break. Just self-regulation is very difficult to create. It's not surprising, then, that this case took 23 years and millions of dollars to get settled.
Such rampant and overt discrimination as the USIA/VOA exercised was definitely not an aberration 23 years ago when it was widely ignored. The exorbitant legal bills surely have cleared up that organization's discrimination. Hopefully it won't take 23 more years for today's mistakes to be uncovered and corrected, whatever those mistakes may be.
(Chris DelGrosso's column normally appears Mondays inThe Cavalier Daily.)
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