An Officer and a Lady

“We can always get Marcia Gallegos to do it!”

The selection board for a branch of the armed services had convened. Their task was to review a slate of candidates within the civil engineering corps for promotion. There were 125 candidates to review for 25 available positions.

The challenge lay in the fact that the current selection board consisted solely of white men. “And to assure fairness, we should try to have diverse representation on the board, you know, a woman and a person of color.” That was a good observation, since the slate of candidates did include a diverse group of junior officers.

“Yeah, and Marcia is a woman, Hispanic, and an officer.”

Enter Marcia. Serving on the selection board was an appointment, not something she could turn down. So, she rolled up her sleeves, dug into the files—all 125 of them—and began her assessment of each individual candidate. She carefully considered the requirements of the positions and ranks into which they’d be moving and evaluated each individual’s qualifications—knowledge, skills and abilities—against those requirements.

The selection board convened to discuss the candidates. They sang the praises of so many of the young male officers, including one who was African American. They made it sound as if he had gone to heaven and back. They called for a vote.

Then, Marcia protested. She pointed out that none of the women candidates were even talked about. It was as if they did not exist. She asked if anyone had looked at their files and evaluated their careers to this point. Silence. Sheepish looks appeared on their faces as their heads dropped down, avoiding eye contact with her.

Then she began her assessment of the African American male, pointing out that he had no leadership experience and his skills were weak. While he had future potential, he clearly needed more development. The others were shocked at her observation. They thought they’d done well, choosing one, and only one, diverse candidate.

A discussion of all the female candidates and their qualifications followed, with Marcia presenting her assessment of each. In the end, one of them was chosen for promotion. The African American male was not.

Reviewing the process, did the male members of the selection board deliberately overlooked the female candidates, or was that omission an inadvertent bias based on past practice or culture? We can’t assume or be certain of their motives. However, discrimination might have been present.

Adverse treatment discrimination occurs when an intentional employment decision that treats someone differently than another similarly situated employee on the basis of a protected status, in this instance, sex, is made. Adverse impact discrimination occurs when a neutral policy inadvertently has a discriminatory effect on a protected class of people.

Marcia may have identified other female candidates she felt were deserving of promotion. Nevertheless, she led by example in ensuring the review of all the females and their qualifications and modeling a fairer selection process free from bias and potential discrimination.