More than 1,100 women will split $508 million after waiting two decades for Uncle Sam to settle a sex discrimination class action lawsuit.
The agreement will net each woman an average of $462,000 in back pay, retirement benefits, and interest. The sum is the largest the government has ever paid in a discrimination case and comes on top of another $23 million that the courts have awarded 46 individual women in the case.
The Justice Department announced the settlement Wednesday, following a vigorous legal battle that began in 1977, when the original lawsuit was filed against the government.
The settlement affects 1,100 women who applied for jobs at the U.S. Information Agency and the Voice of America between Oct. 8, 1974 and Nov. 16, 1984. While the government admits no wrongdoing in the settlement, the women alleged discriminatory hiring practices at the now-defunct USIA. Less qualified men were hired over women, qualifying examination scores were rigged to favor male applicants and hiring officials told women that the agency was "looking for male voices," the female applicants alleged.
"The settlement amount is the result of the lengthy time period involved, the relatively high-paying positions at issue, the number of claimants and the accrual of pre-judgment interest beginning in 1991," said Wilma Lewis, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, in a statement released Wednesday.
In 1997-20 years after the sex-bias suit was originally filed-the Supreme Court let stand an appeals court decision favoring the women. A year earlier, hearings began in which each woman involved in the class action started to bring her claims to the courts. Of the 48 women whose claims were heard by a court-appointed special master prior to Wednesday's settlement, 46 prevailed and were awarded an average of $2 million.
Attorney Bruce Fredrickson has been on the case since the beginning, and attorney Susan Brackshaw has been involved in the case for 20 years. The government will pay the legal fees owed their firm, Washington-based Webster, Fredrickson & Brackshaw, as part of the settlement. Attorneys at Crowell & Moring and at Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon & Salzman also represented women in the case.
After 23 years, "the U.S. government got a good close look at the facts and realized it was time to give up," Brackshaw said. "These women were, in fact, victimized."
Brackshaw said the settlement agreement must be approved following a fairness hearing by Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Assuming Robertson approves the agreement, the women could begin receiving the money this fall, Brackshaw said.
Last year, USIA was folded into the State Department. The Voice of America became part of a new agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
The case is Hartman v. Albright.
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