Attorneys Defend Landmark Victory That Eliminated Last Barrier to Military Service for People Living with HIV
ttorneys challenging the military’s ban on enlistment of people living with HIV presented oral arguments in Wilkins v. Hegseth today before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Scott A. Schoettes and Linda Coberly defended a 2024 district court ruling that struck down the policy preventing people living with HIV from joining the U.S. Armed Services.
The case, Wilkins v. Hegseth, challenges Department of Defense (DoD) and Army policies that bar all people living with HIV from military service—even those with undetectable viral loads who present no health or transmission risk. In August 2024, a federal district court ruled these policies violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and the Administrative Procedure Act, finding them “irrational, arbitrary, and capricious” and noting they “contribute to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military’s own recruitment goals.”
The Department of Defense appealed the decision, seeking to reinstate the discriminatory ban. Since the district court’s injunction took effect in August 2024, the military has been accepting qualified individuals with well-managed HIV, demonstrating that the ban was not necessary and that these patriots can serve alongside their fellow service members.
“Today we asked the Fourth Circuit to uphold the district court’s decision declaring it unconstitutional and unlawful for the military to continue enforcing the last discriminatory policy barring people living with HIV from service,” said Gregory Nevins, Senior Counsel and Employment Fairness Project Director for Lambda Legal. “Modern science has transformed HIV into a chronic, treatable condition. People with undetectable viral loads can deploy anywhere, perform all duties without limitation, and pose no transmission risk to others. We are confident the court will see that Americans living with HIV should not face blanket bans to serving their country.”
“All we have ever asked is for the military to recognize the reality of HIV today and to objectively evaluate people living with HIV under the medical standards the military uses for everyone else,” said Scott A. Schoettes, the attorney who led the previous Lambda cases involving service members living with HIV. “Following Fourth Circuit precedent, the district court’s ruling forces the military to do just that and definitively closes any loopholes left by earlier rulings. An affirmance in the Fourth Circuit should put this issue to rest once and for all, so that our clients and others living with HIV can get on with the important business of national security.”
“The military ban on Americans living with HIV is yet another holdover from a long era of needless discrimination,” said Linda Coberly, Partner for Winston & Strawn. “It’s well past time for this senseless policy to end. We are confident that the Fourth Circuit will agree that our clients and others living with HIV should finally be permitted to serve their country.”
BACKGROUND
The case, Wilkins v. Hegseth, was filed in November 2022 by Lambda Legal, Scott A. Schoettes, Esq., Peter Perkowski, Esq., and Winston & Strawn LLP on behalf of three individual plaintiffs who could not enlist or re-enlist based on their HIV status and organizational plaintiff Minority Veterans of America (MVA). MVA advances the interests of its civilian members who are living with HIV and wish to serve in the military.
Plaintiffs include Isaiah Wilkins, who was separated from the Army Reserves and disenrolled from the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School after testing positive for HIV; two other qualified individuals (using pseudonyms Carol Coe and Natalie Noe) denied military service based on HIV status; and Minority Veterans of America, whose membership includes people living with HIV who want to serve or rejoin the military.
The filing followed Lambda Legal’s earlier victories in Harrison v. Austin and Roe v. Austin, landmark rulings that ordered the Department of Defense (DoD) to stop discriminating against service members living with HIV. Following those decisions, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III issued a memorandum in June 2022 stating that individuals who are HIV-positive, asymptomatic, and have a clinically confirmed undetectable viral load will have no medical restrictions applied to their deployability or ability to commission based on their HIV-positive status. These groundbreaking rulings reflected the reality that HIV is a chronic, treatable condition, not a reason to discriminate.
In August 2024, a U.S. District Court struck down the policy barring all people living with HIV from joining the U.S. Armed Services, ruling that the policies are “irrational, arbitrary, and capricious” and “contribute to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military’s own recruitment goals.”
The DoD appealed the decision, seeking to reinstate the discriminatory ban.
Read more about Roe & Voe v. Austin here: https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/roe-and-voe-v-austin
Read more about Harrison v. Austin here: https://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/harrison-v-austin
Read more about Wilkins v. Hegseth here: https://lambdalegal.org/case/wilkins-v-hegseth/