WASHINGTON, Oct 29 (AFP) - For the second time in as many months, an aspiring US diplomat turned down for a job because he is HIV-positive accused the State Department of discrimination, his lawyers said Wednesday.
The complaint, filed with the department's Office of Civil Rights, alleges that Kyle Smith was illegally discriminated against when he was rejected for a job in the US Foreign Service because of his HIV status, according to the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The department violated a US law that bars the federal government from discriminating against people with disabilities by denying employment to Smith, a 34-year-old student from Ohio who has been living with HIV for seven years but is otherwise healthy, Lambda charged.
"Kyle Smith wants to serve his country and work overseas," said Jonathan Givner, a lawyer with the group. "He can do this job and do it well. But because he has HIV, none of that matters to the State Department."
"The State Department is preventing qualified, healthy people from serving their country -- all while there's a severe shortage of Foreign Service applicants who are badly needed right now," he said.
"This isn't just bad policy -- it's illegal," Givner said in a statement.
Last month, Lambda filed a federal lawsuit against the department and Secretary of State Colin Powell for denying another HIV-positive man -- Lorenzo Taylor -- a job in the Foreign Service.
The department is due to respond to the lawsuit next week and has declined to comment on the issue thus far because it is a pending legal matter.
But it is the department's policy not to employ HIV-positive applicants because of Foreign Service requirements that diplomats be able to serve in any country in the world, including those with little or no health care facilities and those which bar entry to people with the virus or AIDS.
Diplomats who become HIV-positive after their employment are accomodated by the department and are not affected by the restrictions.
At the time Taylor's suit was filed September 3, a senior State Department official said the policy was based on the need for foreign service officers to have "worldwide availability" to be fair to the entire diplomatic corps, many of whom serve in difficult nations with substandard health care.
"It's not so much a matter of their ability to do the job," the official said on condition of anonymity. "We recognize that people who are HIV-positive have the ability to do the job.
"But is it fair to the entire corps to have some people come in who can only take assignments in a limited number of places and other people therefore get shunted off to maybe less desirable places without the same quality of medical facilities?"
The Lambda fund argues that foreign service applicants should be assessed case-by-case to determine their individual medical status and fitness for overseas employment.
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