...if anything, it's the agency which appears disgruntled (retaliatory, even before the dismissal) at Sterling for raising the complaint.
from People:
Sterling joined the CIA in 1993 and two years later became a case officer in the Iran Task Force. (He was the only black among its more than 20 professionals.) To prepare, he spent a year studying Farsi, the language of Iran. Sent to Bonn in 1997 to recruit Iranians as agents, he grew frustrated when he wasn't given new prospects to recruit. Perplexed, he returned to Langley and confronted his supervisors. "I asked why I wasn't receiving any assignments. They said, "Well, you kind of stick out as a big black guy,'" Sterling recalls. "They said, 'You bring unwanted attention to where you're assigned.' Everyone in management agreed I was too conspicuous. And I said, 'Well, when did you realize that I was black?'"
He returned to work at the agency's Langley headquarters, then in 1999 moved to the New York City CIA office, again assigned to recruit Iranians. Though supervisors gave him a good evaluation that September, they soon complained that he was not finding enough spies. When the office gave him orders to recruit at least three contacts in two months—an unusually high quota, say CIA insiders—he became more angry. "I said, 'You are setting me up to fail,'" says Sterling.
In April of 2000 Sterling complained to the agency's Equal Employment Opportunity office. That, he says, only brought more difficulties, including a security evaluation that he says was sooner than standard. He says he applied for several overseas postings but was turned down. Told to return to the Iran Task Force, he refused. "That office said I was too big and black," he says. "Why would I want to go back there?" The agency placed him on administrative leave in March 2001. Frustrated, he filed suit in U.S. district court in New York City on Aug. 28, 2001. Two months later he was fired. Says Sterling: "The deck was stacked against me."
"It was a very emotional time for me," says Sterling, whose career was beginning a slump he now blames on racism.
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