Today, legal advocates urged a U.S. District Court to strike down the ban preventing people living with HIV from joining any branch of the U.S. Armed Services. The hearing on a motion for summary judgment came in Wilkins v. Austin, filed one year ago by Lambda Legal, Winston & Strawn LLP, Perkowski Legal, PC, and Scott A. Schoettes, Esq.
The legal advocates issued the following joint statement at the conclusion of today’s hearing before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“Today we presented our case for why this vestigial and discriminatory ban blocking those who want to serve their country from enlisting in the U.S. Armed Services deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of history. The Pentagon has already conceded that service members cannot be discharged, banned from commissioning, or barred from deployment based solely on their HIV-positive status. It thus makes no sense to continue to block enlistment. We look forward to the court reaching a similar conclusion.”
Background
The lawsuit, Wilkins v. Austin, was filed on behalf of three individual plaintiffs who cannot enlist or re-enlist based on their HIV status. Minority Veterans of America (“MVA”) is also an organizational plaintiff. MVA advances the interests of its civilian members who are living with HIV and wish to serve in the military.
The filing followed the Biden administration’s announcement in July 2022 that it would no longer defend discriminatory restrictions that prevented servicemembers living with HIV from deploying and commissioning as officers. Instead of appealing the decision of the district court declaring these restrictions unlawful and unconstitutional, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III issued a memorandum outlining changes to the relevant regulations, which stated that individuals who have been identified as HIV-positive, are asymptomatic, and who have a clinically confirmed undetectable viral load will have no medical restrictions applied to their deployability or to their ability to commission while a servicemember based on their HIV-positive status.
Before the July 2022 announcement, a federal district court handed down one of the most substantial judicial rulings in over two decades for people living with HIV in two cases—Harrison v. Austin and Roe & Voe v. Austin. The rulings ordered the Department of Defense (DOD)—the world’s largest employer—to stop discriminating against servicemembers living with HIV and to allow them to deploy and commission as officers in the U.S. military. That groundbreaking ruling represented a landmark moment in the fight to advance the rights of people living with HIV. It reflected the reality that HIV is a chronic, treatable condition, not a legitimate justification for discrimination.
Joining Lambda Legal attorneys Kara N. Ingelhart and Gregory R. Nevins on the case are Scott A. Schoettes, Esq., Peter Perkowski of Perkowski Legal, PC, and Amandeep Sidhu, Bryce Cooper, Robert Vlasis, Lauren Gailey, Dave Bujarski, and Hannah Shankman of Winston & Strawn LLP.
Read more about Wilkins v. Austin here.
Read more about Harrison v. Austin here.
Read more about Roe & Voe v. Austin here.