Is There A Retirement Age For Foreign Service?

U.S. Secretarial assistant of Country Hillary Clinton, age 62, doesn't face mandatory retirement at age 65 like many Foreign Service officials exercise. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption

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Evan Vucci/AP

U.South. Secretarial assistant of State Hillary Clinton, age 62, doesn't confront mandatory retirement at historic period 65 similar many Foreign Service officials exercise.

Evan Vucci/AP

When are you besides erstwhile to represent the U.S. abroad? That question is on the minds of some Foreign Service officers who are bumping upward against a mandatory retirement age.

The age dominion doesn't cover Secretarial assistant of State Hillary Clinton or ambassadors. Rather, it's a cap for midranking officials, already in short supply.

From her postal service in Karachi, Pakistan, Elizabeth Colton has had a decorated summer trying to improve America's paradigm and deal with devastating floods. She also has a more personal problem on her hands: Tuesday was her 65th birthday, something she would have liked to have historic. But in her case, information technology means the end of a career path she loves.

"It is not similar the historic period [at which] ane becomes decrepit," she says. "In fact, maybe you accept more energy, more than focused energy."

A Lawsuit

Colton seems to thrive on her seven-day-a-week chore, having spent her birthday visiting alluvion victims in camps in Karachi. And, she'south not retiring without a fight. Last year, she filed a lawsuit calling the mandatory retirement historic period unconstitutional. And she's been pushing from within -- finally getting a ane-year extension to work in Cairo.

Similar many of the Strange Service officers running up against this mandatory retirement age, Colton came to the chore late in life after other careers, including a job as NPR's diplomatic correspondent.

"I was a journalist, I was an anthropologist, I was a press secretarial assistant, I was a professor," she says. "Information technology was a childhood dream that I wanted to be a diplomat as well as a announcer and an adventuress."

Another former journalist, Diana Page, works at the Country Department assisting foreign reporters in Washington. Fluent in Castilian and Portuguese, she has served in -- among other places -- Guyana, Republic of chile, Bosnia and northeastern Brazil. She'south fix to put in a few more years, just she's 64.

"I have one more than yr left. If I could bid on overseas jobs, possibly, then I would be able to extend for a two-yr or three-year assignment and I would so reach my full Social Security age," she says. "I would make another contribution, perhaps, in a land, and I would do what I love doing."

Question For Clinton

Folio is not suing but has been trying to get Clinton's attention at town hall meetings. She has been rehearsing her question.

"My question is, 'Madame Secretary, as you have said this is a slap-up job, yous are clearly enjoying being secretarial assistant of country. Do you call up it is off-white that I take to retire being your age and you don't?' " she says. "Yous know, no. But I oasis't had a chance to raise it."

Land Department spokesman P.J. Crowley says the section is guided by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which sets the retirement age only likewise allows the secretary to give limited extensions. He says the idea is to make sure younger Strange Service officers accept a take chances to move upwards. Crowley says retirees tin come up back on temporary assignments.

"We look at creative ways of continuing to utilize these talented people," he says. "We have lots of dissimilar programs to do that."

Officers Split On Issue

The American Strange Service Association, which represents the interests of Strange Service employees, is calling on the Land Section to exist more transparent nearly all of that. Members are nevertheless dissever on the broader issue of retirement, says Susan Johnson, AFSA'southward president.

"We've heard from quite a number of members who want to see the retirement historic period raised to 67 to put information technology in sync with Social Security," she says.

AFSA's annual survey, which went out concluding autumn, showed that member opinion was roughly equally divided on raising the retirement historic period, she says.

While the professional person association looks into the issue, Colton argues in her lawsuit that age discrimination shouldn't exist tolerated at all -- that there should be no age limit. She calls it a matter of ceremonious rights.