FBI to pay $22M to settle claims of sexual discrimination at training academy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has agreed to pay more than $22 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging female recruits were singled out for dismissal in training and routinely harassed by instructors with sexually charged comments about their breast size, false allegations of infidelity and the need to take contraception “to control their moods.”

The payout to 34 women dismissed from the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia, still subject to approval by a federal judge, would rank among the biggest lawsuit settlements in the history of the bureau.

“These problems are pervasive within the FBI and the attitudes that created them were learned at the academy,” said David J. Shaffer, the lawyer for the women. “This case will make important major changes in these attitudes.”

Filed in 2019, the lawsuit contends that female recruits had been subjected to a hostile working environment in which they were judged more harshly than their male peers and “excessively targeted for correction and dismissal in tactical situations for perceived lack of judgment” and subjective “suitability” criteria.

One of the women said she was admonished to “smile more” and subjected to repeated sexual advances. Another said that an instructor leered at her and stared at her chest, “sometimes while licking his lips.”

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