Diabetic to begin career as diplomat

boston.com
Sued after offer was rescinded
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff December 12, 2009

Anna Balogh became interested in pursuing a career as a diplomat in 1990, when she lived in Hungary the summer after her freshman year at Wellesley College. Communism was collapsing in Europe. Her roommate was an East German, and they urgently discussed Germany’s looming reunification. History was unfolding at stunning speed before their eyes.
Thirteen years later, the Lincoln woman applied for a highly competitive job as a Foreign Service officer and received an offer in November 2003. But her excitement soon gave way to crushing disappointment when the State Department withdrew the offer for a reason she found unfathomable: Balogh is an insulin-dependent diabetic. The government denied her medical clearance because she had to be fit to work at any of about 270 posts worldwide, including some in remote locales.
This week, days before Balogh’s civil rights lawsuit against the State Department was to go to trial in US District Court in Boston, the 38-year-old and the government settled the dispute out of court. Balogh will be appointed as a Foreign Service officer for a three-year trial period, she said, and hopes it will become permanent.
The government also agreed to pay her a sum, which she declined to disclose, for wages lost when she was not hired.
“Overall, I would say I’m satisfied because at the end of the day, what was most important to me was getting the job,’’ said Balogh, who has a master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. “I’m exhausted and just relieved, frankly. This was not a typical path for a Foreign Service officer.’’
Her lawyer, Hillary Schwab of Boston, said she believes Balogh’s federal lawsuit was the first filed by someone rejected as a Foreign Service officer because of insulin-dependent, or Type 1, diabetes. Schwab said she hoped the settlement would prod the State Department to eliminate a hiring ban that she and her client consider outdated, given the availability of insulin and medical treatment for diabetics worldwide.

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