Palmer, Alison, 1959-

Brown University Class of 1953. Worked as writer for Christian Science Monitor and New York Times; served in the United States Foreign Service (1959-1981) in Belgian Congo, Ethiopia, and Vietnam. Honored for her service in Vietnam. Filed sex discrimination complaint (relating to her assigment in Africa) against the State Department and won her case in 1974. Together with women colleagues brought a class action suit against the Department and won in 1987. Thirteenth woman Episcopal priest ordained in the United States. Daughter of Lois Mead Patten Palmer (Brown University Class of 1927) who, as a kindergarten teacher in New York State, forced by her school department to retire at the age of seventy, filed and lost an age discrimination suit.

Born in Medford, Mass., in 1931, Palmer received a B.A. from Brown University in 1953, and an M.A. from the Boston University African Studies Center in 1966. She attended American University and Virginia Theological Seminary, and was the thirteenth woman in the United States to be ordained an Episcopal priest.

Palmer began working for the Department of State in 1955 as a clerk typist, and became a Foreign Service Officer in 1960. After several ambassadors objected to her assignment to their embassies in Africa in the late 1960s, and when she was expected to act as social secretary to an ambassador's wife, she started an internal grievance procedure through the department's Equal Employment Office charging sex discrimination. In 1969 she was notified that the EEO had found in her favor, but refused to enter the report in her personnel file.

Palmer took the case to the Civil Service Commission in June 1971, which also found in her favor. The State Department then announced that sex discrimination would no longer be tolerated. Palmer's case thus provided a basis for the more conciliatory tactics of the Women's Action Organization; for more information, see the 13 interviews in Women's Action Organization, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College (OH-39).