CIA Asks to Cut Settlement to Leaders of Sex Bias Case : Discrimination: The agency wants to change June agreement on award to female spies. Women who pressed case argue risks deserve higher payoff.

WASHINGTON —  In a move that has stirred anger and dissension among some female spies, the CIA is seeking to reduce the amount of money that has been proposed to be paid to female case officers who were in the forefront of a sexual discrimination class-action lawsuit against the agency.

In a motion filed earlier this month, the CIA asked a federal court in Virginia to cut the cash payments to the women who took the lead in fighting the case and is proposing instead to give more of the funds to other female case officers.

The spy agency’s latest action comes more than two months after a settlement was reached providing a total of $940,000 in payments to about 450 current and former female case officers in a suit charging widespread sexual discrimination against female spies in the CIA’s elite Directorate of Operations, which handles clandestine espionage.

Now the women who took the lead in the case complain that the CIA is reneging on an agreement that has already been approved by a federal judge, reopening old wounds with female employees. They believed that the case had been closed; now those women say that the agency is seeking retribution against those who risked their careers to force the CIA to be held accountable for a long history of discrimination.

“This is really astonishing that they would pull something like this,” said one source close to the case. “It shows that the agency was negotiating in bad faith all along. And it certainly calls into question the commitment of the new administration [at the CIA] to improving the status of women in the agency.”

The CIA argues, however, that while it agreed to the total amount to be awarded in the settlement, it never accepted the way the money was to be divvied up among the women who pioneered the case.

In fact, the CIA isn’t trying to reduce the total award or change other non-monetary agreements. But in a filing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, it opposes a plan to give $120,000 of the $940,000 to nine “class agents” and one other woman who initially had taken the lead in the case but was later excluded because her sexual discrimination charge predated the case’s 1976 cutoff point. The CIA argues that it never agreed to that plan and instead wants to give only $42,000 to the nine class agents. The rest of the funds would be divided among the entire class of current and former female CIA case officers.

“The government’s position on an equitable distribution of funds for all members of the class has remained consistent throughout the settlement process,” said CIA spokesman David Christian. “The latest filing represents no change in that regard. The idea that the government has changed its position is wrong.”

The settlement approved by the court in June included the recommendations by the attorneys for the women that the class agents should receive $120,000. But the CIA says in its latest court filing that even when it accepted the settlement, the agency spelled out to the court that it believed that the $120,000 payment was “unwarranted.”

But attorneys for the women argue that the settlement clearly called for the larger amounts for the 10 women who took the lead in the case. The CIA has no basis for fighting the way the funds are to be distributed, the attorneys say.

The lawyers for the women have asked the court to reject the CIA’s request, but U.S. District Judge Albert Bryan has not yet ruled on the issue.

“They are trying to undermine the settlement agreement that the judge approved just two months ago,” complained Michelle Fishburne, an attorney at the Washington law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, which handled the class-action case. “We feel that it is justified for the women who led this class action and who stepped out on a limb--in some cases very visibly--to be given special monetary awards.

“The agency’s culture intimidates people who have justified grievances. And we believe giving them any award less than what we have suggested will only discourage other people from coming forward to protect their rights in the future.”

The lawyers for the women expect the court to rule in their favor. In fact, people familiar with the case speculate that the CIA may have mounted its last-minute opposition to the cash awards not so much because it believes it can win but in order to get its objections on the record for use in future cases.

Yet Lynne Larkin, a former CIA case officer who has been a spokeswoman for many of the women in the case, said that female case officers familiar with the agency’s latest legal action fear that the CIA “is trying now to retaliate in such a way as to punish those who came forward. It shocks me, the boldness of this.”

Larkin and many of the other women who took the lead in pursuing the class-action case initially opposed the settlement, arguing that it would do little to force the CIA to change its culture or improve the status of women within the agency’s clandestine operations arm. Their opposition put them at odds with Steptoe & Johnson, prompting the women to get another lawyer to fight the settlement. But when Bryan approved the settlement June 9, the issue of how much money each of the women would get appeared to be settled.

Now Larkin and others who rebelled are angry that the agreement may not have been firm enough to prevent the agency from trying to reduce their payments.

“This should never have even been an issue,” Larkin said. “Steptoe & Johnson should have made it quite clear at the time that there could be no changes in even this very weak settlement agreement. And yet here we are with another nasty surprise.”