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Lambda Legal and a coalition of law firms and attorneys filed a lawsuit Nov. 10 in a federal Virginia district court challenging the U.S. military’s prohibition of HIV-positive Americans from enlisting in the U.S. Armed Forces.
The legal challenge was filed on behalf of three individual plaintiffs and the Minority Veterans of America in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The action comes on the heels of the Department of Defense’s updates this summer to its policies concerning HIV-positive service members.
On June 7, the agency announced it would not restrict the deployability or ability to commission, nor discharge or separate any service members based solely on their HIV-positive status, provided they are asymptomatic and have a “clinically confirmed undetectable viral load.”
“For years, the military has found it difficult to meet the recruitment and end-strength goals for an all-volunteer force,” Lambda Legal co-counsel Peter Perkowski, who is also the legal and policy director of MVA, said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
“Given this reality, it is non-sensical for the nation’s largest employer to turn away healthy, fit, and fully capable recruits just because they have HIV,” Perkowski said.
“A positive HIV status alone has no effect on a person’s ability to safely serve,” Kara Ingelhart, senior attorney at Lambda Legal, said in the press release. “Because HIV disproportionately impacts LGBTQ+ people and people of color, this discriminatory policy is not only outdated, but is also a serious equity issue that has a significant impact on communities who already face countless systemic barriers to accessing full life in America.”
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