Woman Scientist Victorious In Discrimination Case

Feminist groups applaud as the beleaguered NIH employee can go back to work, vindicated, after a six-year-long battle Date: April 27, 1992 In a move that may finally resolve a suit filed three years ago, the National Institutes of Health offered to reinstate Sharon Johnson in a job earlier this month. The position of "floating scientific review administrator," Johnson says, is not exactly the same job that she fled on April 21, 1986, three years before she filed a successful lawsuit alleging handicap and sex discrimination against NIH. In fact, "I think it's a special job created for me" by NIH to comply with the judgment of the suit, says Johnson, who previously had been executive secretary for the pathobiochemistry study section. She won the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in November 1991, on the grounds of handicap discrimination (Johnson has narcolepsy) and has been waiting for action since then. NIH has filed an appeal, though it may not pursue the appeal further if they are able to settle the case. At press time, specifics of the NIH offer, conveyed in a letter to Johnson's attorney, had not been released. Although Johnson won her case on the grounds of handicap discrimination, she alleged in her suit that her discrimination came as a result of her unwillingness to accept her supervisor's sexual overtures. Johnson's six-year struggle for restitution for harassment, which she describes as "Kafka-esque," is only one of several harassment cases that are currently surfacing as NIH is being forced to address these issues. Closely watching the case is SHER (Self-Help for Equal Rights), an unofficial employment-rights group, consisting primarily of women from NIH. Johnson's case notwithstanding, SHER is not in any danger of running out of work, its members say. According to SHER president Billie Mackey, a technical information specialist in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, last year 194 informal complaints regarding sexual or other discrimination were filed against NIH with the agency's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO). In addition, 37 cases reached the formal complaint level, and four, unresolved by EEO, are currently in court, including one against the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). First recruited by the NIH Grants Associates Board for its Grants Associates trainee program in 1979, Johnson was told during an interview "in no uncertain terms to avoid SHER or any other women's groups," she recalls. Although she thought this was odd, she had no reason to suspect any problems, she says. She took the position and worked in several NIH jobs through July 1984, when she joined the division of research grants for the pathobiochemistry study section. There she worked for Asher Hyatt, chief of the biomedical sciences review section, and, according to her complaint, experienced numerous instances of sexual harassment from Hyatt, including being kissed, physical contacts, being called "Love," and receiving unwanted invitations to drinks and meals. According to her complaint Johnson rejected the advances and tried to avoid the harassment. Johnson has idiopathic hyper-somnolence; in addition, she has a heart arrhythmia that prevents her from using standard medications for her narcolepsy. The result, she said in her complaint, is that on her drive to work she would occasionally become sleepy; she said a quick nap at the side of the road would solve the problem, and she asked for up to 30 minutes of flextime. Hyatt and the responsible officials at NIH did not make this accommodation, according to the court judgment, and this refusal was part of a general unwillingness of Hyatt's office to accommodate Johnson's disabilities. After going through channels at EEO without positive results, Johnson finally resigned in 1986; in 1989 she filed her suit. Johnson stated in her complaint that her handicap accommodation problems were, in part, retaliation for her unwillingness to accept Hyatt's overtures. Though the court found only that Johnson suffered handicap discrimination (and ordered her reinstatement and payment of back pay), it found that Hyatt's "conduct may in fact have constituted sexual harassment, but that the conduct was not sufficiently severe or pervasive to violate" federal guidelines. Hyatt denies the allegations of sexual harassment. "There were never any charges of harassment made while she was here," he says, in an interview with The Scientist. "It was after she left and after she found herself a lawyer that the whole thing suddenly appeared as retribution" for her refusal of his alleged advances. "It's an absolute bunch of crap," Hyatt goes on, stressing that Johnson "did not win the sex harassment case." Still, to SHER and other women's groups, Johnson is a hero. "Every woman who works in professional science owes a debt of gratitude to these women," says Viola Young-Horvath, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Federation of Organizations for Professional Women, a national coalition of women's groups, of which SHER is a member, referring to Johnson and several others who have made charges of sexual harassment. Among them are psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold, currently fighting a sexual harassment case against NIMH; Maureen Polsby, a fellow at the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, also filing suit against NIH for sexual harassment and discrimination; and neurosurgeon Frances Conley, whose June 1991 resignation from the Stanford University department of neurosurgery elicited an investigation into the matter by the university, as a result of which Conley rejoined the department. Jensvold alleges in her complaint, filed in late 1990 in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, that she was prevented from participating in important projects by a male boss who harassed her and ordered her to undergo psychotherapy. Polsby claims in her suit, filed in 1989 in the same U.S. District Court, that a supervisor asked her to have sex with him. Both cases have not yet gone to trial. Conley has said that her resignation was in protest of years of subtle sexism and the promotion to acting department head of a colleague she considered a chief offender. In all the cases, the charges have been denied. Mackey says suits alleging discrimination are necessary. Not only does discrimination occur, she notes, but also the several months that passed after the court order and before Johnson's job offer are an example of NIH's policy of sending the "message to discriminators that even if your victim wins in a lawsuit against you and against the NIH, it does not change anything. "This has happened several times," she says, "where people have won in the courtroom yet they have to drag [NIH] back into court to make them comply." According to Lynne Bernabei, the attorney for Johnson and Jensvold, "They just do it to wear you down." The NIH strategy for dealing with discrimination suits is frustrating, says Mackey: "Government agencies have no caps on what they'll spend on these cases." "It looks like at all points where there's supposed to be rational evaluation of whether to continue, either there's no evaluation or the evaluation is made and ignored," Bernabei says, noting that a memo from an early NIH EEO investigation in Johnson's case recommended settlement on the handicap grounds, but was not acted upon. As Jensvold, a medical staff fellow whose suit alleges sex discrimination from 1987 to 1989, puts it, "When you're trying to improve the situation, it's very hard when they won't admit there's a problem." In response to a November 21 letter to NIH director Bernadine Healy from SHER expressing the organization's desire that Healy take action to address the issues raised in Johnson's case, Healy wrote, "If employees ... feel they have been victims of discrimination, they should feel free to file complaints with [EEO], and they should feel confident that their complaints will be given every consideration. The Court's decision is evidence that the complaint process system works." Mackey says, "This response showed a lack of knowledge about the long, drawn-out complaint process ... and it showed a lack of sensitivity to the seriousness of discrimination." On January 6, SHER had a meeting with Healy in which they asked her not to appeal the decision in Johnson's case, Mackey says, and, "right after the meeting [NIH] filed to appeal." Diane Armstrong, EEO director, agrees with Healy's response to the SHER letter. "I can't say that [sex discrimination] is a problem here because our complaints here do not reflect that," she says. She notes that there is "a 66 percent resolution rate," though she acknowledges that that doesn't mean everybody likes the results: "To be honest, there may be some cases here that the cases resolve but the person left, anyway." If nothing Johnson's win, says Mackey, gives women and other people with discrimination claims an example that, though it may take years, cases can be won. Mackey notes that "we know of at least two women who have been harassed [at NIH], but they will not come forward. They don't want their careers ruined."

Woman Scientist Victorious In Discrimination Case

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