Denied a Promotion Because She’s a Woman

by Matt Kelley · 2009-11-16 06:50:00 UTC
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Andrea Young was a 13-year veteran of the Pennsylvania State Police when she sat for the state’s promotion exam. She scored sixth out of 2,000 test-takers. But she was skipped for the promotion, and she argues in a new lawsuit that the snub was just one facet of the consistent harassment she suffered as a female officer on the force.

Just 4% of state cops in Pennsylvania are women, and Young said she endured jokes about her sex life and even received a photo of one officer’s penis. Other officers admitted to her they were cheating on the test, but then accused her of cheating. She says she wasn’t only targeted because she’s a woman, but because she was a speaking up about the conditions under which she worked.

Another suit against the Pennsylvania agency alleges that an illegal background check was run on a civilian by a jealous ex-boyfriend in the agency. An attorney for the civilian plaintiff, Jerry Grossnickle, told the Philadelphia Daily News: “There’s a buddy system that pervades the state police, a system in which criminal laws are broken to protect the clique."

This culture isn’t unique to the Pennsylvania State Police -- it's pervasive throughout law enforcement. Gender discrimination needs to be addressed head-on before our law enforcement agencies can even begin to talk about equality. Aggressive hiring should aim to balance the gender gap -- a force with 4% women in 2009 is simply unacceptable. Female officers deserve to work in a welcoming and safe environment, and we can’t trust a boys’ club that harasses female officers to treat female crime victims or defendants with respect.

Via PoliceOne and the Philadelphia Daily News

Photo by Dtbohrer

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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