September 30, 2024
As part of the proposed settlement, former female trainees can reapply to become agents and two outside experts will review the training program to make sure the evaluation process is fair.
The Justice Department agreed to a $22.6 million settlement for 34 women who sued the F.B.I., accusing the bureau of unfairly dismissing them from its agent training program because of their gender, according to court documents.
As part of the proposed settlement, the women can reapply to become agents and two outside experts will review the training program to make sure the evaluation process is fair.
“It was a long time coming,” said Paula Bird, 36, who was one of the women who filed the complaint in 2019. “They finally acknowledged there were problems, and they will hopefully do something about.”
The settlement still has to be approved by Judge Jia M. Cobb of Federal District Court in the District of Columbia.
The women, former recruits, filed the lawsuit, saying the F.B.I. had discriminated against them because of their gender and accusing the bureau of employing a double standard.
All the women had passed their fitness, academic and firearms tests at the F.B.I.’s facility in Quantico, Va. But they failed the last phase known as tactical training, which involves entering a house and confronting an armed attacker. The tactical training takes place at Hogan’s Alley, the F.B.I.’s mock town where hired actors portray terrorists and criminals.
The women accused instructors of treating women differently and running a “good-old-boy network” at the training academy.
“When male trainees do the same, they are praised for having a ‘command presence,’” the lawsuit said.
The women were dismissed from new-agent training between April 2015 and August 2024.
The complaints eventually prompted a review by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
In a report released in December 2022, the inspector general found that female trainees received a “disproportionate number of performance citations and were dismissed at rates higher than expected based on their share of the population.”
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“The F.B.I. would have been a much better agency if they had all of these women among their agents,” said Christine E. Webber, one of the lawyers who worked on the case.
“They showed they had what it takes to pass every objective test,” Ms. Webber said. “It was the one subjective test that led to their dismissal.”
Read Justice Dept. to Pay $22 Million to Settle Gender Bias Claims Against FBI.