Found Guilty of Gender Bias

In our days, any alleged discrimination was attributed to racism, or, if the victim was a woman, to sexism. Much has changed since then. On 31 January, the ILO Tribunal, in Judgement 2004, found WHO’s Administration guilty of gender bias against a male colleague in Washington, D.C.. Its conclusion was based largely on the following:

The WHO «Cabinet has decided to secure that 6 out of 10 new appointments are women until parity is reached,” D.-G., March 1999.

“...there was a gender mountain to climb,” Executive Director, Mgmt, in assessing the chances that Mark S. Matthews, Chief, Budget and Finance, AMRO, graded P6, become Director, Mgmt, Geneva, graded D-2

«Selection of staff members shall be without regard to race, creed or sex, Staff Rule 4.3.

In the first case ever of reverse discrimination in WHO, and probably in the U.N. system, a 53-year-old male challenged, successfully, a bias against him for being a man, and was awarded $5,000 in moral damages and $1,000 in costs — satisfying, though hardly grand amounts, even in our time, considering the injury.

«There is nothing wrong in having a policy aimed at gender parity... but this policy cannot be achieved by setting quotas and by reverse discrimination,” the Tribunal declared in a criticism of the Administration, intimating that the means did not justify the ends.

The since-then, celebrated “gender mountain’ statement by Exec. Director, Mgmt, was “highly irresponsible,” the Tribunal held, for which “she was rightly censured by the HQ. Board of Appeal.” She also recommended appointment of a woman, identified in the judgement as “Ms. W from an outside agency, to correct the «gender inequity” in Mgmt. That led the Tribunal to rule that WHO “will have to hold another competition,” in which the woman selected “can, of course, be a candidate.”

Ail told some 650 applied for the post; six were short-listed. Six took a threehour written test, but only five were interviewed in person. The appellant was interviewed by video, which, in the Tribunal’s view, was “open to the interpretation of unequal treatment”. In general, the Tribunal said it had “no way of assessing the fairness of the (selection) process.”

Also, with the sole exception of the appellant, no party was named, as was the practice in our day. Instead they were referred to by tide or, almost coyly, by initial. Hence, “Ms.W. and, referring to two other candidates, Mr. A” and “Mr. S”.

We have not heard the last of this case.