After being denied for a Foreign Service officer position inside the State Department in 2001, Lorenzo Taylor will finally get his day in court — to argue Condoleezza Rice & Co. denied him the position because of his HIV-positive status, violating federal law. The case has been dragging on since 2002, when the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund took up Taylor’s case and claimed the State Department violated the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits the government from discriminating based on disabilities, including HIV.
State Department officials have acknowledged that Taylor, an Arlington, Va., resident, was highly qualified for a Foreign Service post at the time he applied for a job in 2001. But personnel officials informed him that his HIV-positive status disqualified him for the job under a State Department policy that says people with HIV are ineligible for deployment overseas.
The policy says Foreign Service officers must be capable of serving in certain “hardship” posts in developing countries, where they most likely could not obtain adequate medical care. The policy applies whether or not the individual’s actual assignment is to a “hardship post.”
Which would make these positions off-limits to anyone in a wheelchair, anyone with vision and hearing loss, and anyone with cancer.
Trial ordered in HIV discrimination suit against Rice [NY Blade]
No bed of roses
While it{s a great day when you can get the State Department to back off of anything, Mr. Taylor still has lots of hurdles to pass. Looking at him “case by case,” they still might rate him as less than “worldwide available,” the current label placed on people that the State Dept is willing to send overseas on the government’s dime. A child with a subtle speech problem that needs speech therapy (and no other problems of any kind) doesn’t make the cut according to their harsh rules. That can effectively knock the whole family out of the foreign service, unless they want to split up.
I’ve seen first hand how tough things are, even as a State Dept employee, when overseas– the best doctor in the country being nothing more than an overblown quack, shoddy testing, wrong diagnoses, poor initial medical education, ignorrance and medical systems that do nothing to address the butchers who should never practice again.
Personally, I’m afraid for his long term well being, but at the same time I’m on his side– he’s a grownup and hopefully understands what he wants to get himself into. This can be a wonderful way to live your life, and anyone who can make it through State’s flaming hoops selection process should at least be given a chance. Since State makes all new foreign service officers spend at least one and often more years doing nothing more than decide on visa cases, he’ll more than pay his way for even a short career. (A new officer at any of the visa mills can rack in $1 million a year for the government.)
Things to watch: if they give Mr. Taylor a medical clearance, he still has to get a security clearance from State, and then they{ll place him on a waiting list. Depending on how well he did in their selection process, he’ll get a spot that ranges from zero chance to a definite maybe. If chosen to work, he’ll take a pay cut to live in places he doesn’t get to choose for five years, doing mind numbing robot work before they decide he’s been initiated enough to start doing some real work.
Keep him in your thoughts. He’s asking for a very difficult (and noble) thing.