UNDER THE U.S. military’s current “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the Pentagon discharges well over a thousand people every year for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This policy is just the latest incarnation of an ongoing witch hunt that has been in operation since the Second World War.
The Pentagon fires three to four people every day for being gay—over 1,000 people each year. More than 115,000 gay and lesbian servicemembers have been discharged since the War. Servicemembers have had nooses placed on their racks, been beaten with pillow sacks filled with bars of soap, raped, murdered, discharged – all for being, or being perceived as, lesbian, gay or bisexual. They have had their diaries seized for information about their private lives, and been dragged away in handcuffs on suspicion of being gay.
No American is left untouched by this policy. As a nation, we lose the talents and skills of those critical for our national security. The Army recently fired seven Arabic linguists for being gay despite a severe shortage of linguists in our fight against terrorism. Taxpayers have spent a quarter of a billion dollars training replacements for gay servicemembers kicked out since “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was first implemented. Gay Americans not in the military suffer as judges, CEOs, and politicians invoke “Don’t ask, don’t tell” as justification for anti-gay rights initiatives, the Boy Scouts’ exclusionary policies, and denial of civilian job rights.
Some Americans who serve our country proudly, however, are especially at risk.
Women are discharged at a rate twice their presence in the armed forces. In 2001, thirty percent of those discharged under “Don’t ask, don’t tell” were women, though women comprised only fourteen percent of the active duty force. In the Air Force, where women comprise nineteen percent of the active duty force, 43 percent of those discharged were women. African American women are especially targeted. Many female servicemembers are accused of being lesbians for retaliatory reasons—because they report sexual harassment or refuse the sexual advances of male colleagues. Other women are accused of being lesbians simply because they serve in non-traditional job fields. Younger men and women are also disproportionately impacted by the Pentagon’s gay ban. The military is the largest employer of men and women in the 18–25 age bracket. While young adults comprise approximately 42 percent of the armed forces, ninety percent of Marine Corps and Navy discharges in 2001, and 79 percent of the Coast Guard’s gay discharges, were young adults. Low-income Americans are also targeted. The vast majority of those discharged under “Don’t ask, don’t tell” earn only $12,000 to $20,000 annually. Many Americans join the military to escape poverty or overcome the limited opportunities in their small towns, only to have their one economic opportunity cut short. Anti-gay harassment is common in the armed forces. A recent Department of Defense survey reported that eighty percent of servicemembers had heard anti-gay epithets. The same survey found that 37 percent had witnessed or experienced incidents of anti-gay harassment, nine percent reported witnessing threats, and five percent reported witnessing or experiencing physical assaults. The report further noted that 85 percent of those surveyed said their commands tolerate anti-gay harassment. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” forces servicemembers to hide, lie and evade 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Military personnel cannot reveal their sexual orientation to anyone—not to a parent, a friend, a psychotherapist, or a colleague—without the risk of losing his or her job, scholarships, training, and other opportunities. Imagine being forced to live a lie as your friends and colleagues ask, “Why aren’t you married?” “Who was that on the phone?” “Who did you go on vacation with?” or “Who’s this in the photo?” For heterosexual servicemembers, the answers come easily. For lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers, they come with a heavy pair of alternatives: the sacrifice of personal honor and integrity or the end of a career. The implications of federally sanctioned discrimination are devastating and far-reaching. The military is the largest employer in the United States, with 2.5 million servicemembers on active duty and in the Reserves. It has the only law that mandates firing someone because of his or her sexual orientation. As lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans are fired from the services, the federal government sends a clear message that gay Americans are second-class citizens, deserving of discrimination and harassment, both within and outside of the military. This blatant discrimination must not stand. And law schools must do what they can to oppose it. LAW SCHOOLS across the country, including Harvard, are currently facing a major test of their moral mettle. Will they support anti-gay harassment and discrimination, or not? At issue for Harvard Law School is whether it should allow military recruiters and ROTC programs on campus, even if doing so would violate its long-standing policy of requiring potential employers to sign a statement that they will not discriminate against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. The U.S. military has refused to comply with university policy because the federal statute known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” specifically authorizes anti-gay discrimination. Until recently, Harvard and many other law schools had banned military recruiters from campus. The Pentagon got around the blockade through Congress, which passed the Solomon Amendment, a law that threatens to cut off all federal funding to universities that do not permit military recruiters on campus. Faced with the threat of losing $325 million in federal funding, Harvard, like many other universities, caved, creating an exception in its nondiscrimination policy for the armed forces. There is a growing and justifiable sense of outrage among students, faculty, and alumni/æ who believe that the principle of nondiscrimination should not be so cavalierly tossed aside when it comes to the rights of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Would Harvard have so easily caved had the military adopted a formal policy of excluding Jews or African-Americans? In the 1980’s, students, faculty, and alumni/æ came together to force their universities to divest funds from South Africa in protest of a government that supported the institutionalized racism of apartheid. Today, we should come together again to demand that the university not support a government that institutionalizes anti-gay discrimination and harassment under “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” It’s important also to note what this debate is not about. Allowing military recruiters and ROTC on campus is not about access or recruiting. Recruitment offices are in virtually every corner of our nation. The Internet has opened up new possibilities for enlistment. Americans who want to serve can and should. The services have all met their recruiting goals for 2002. And the debate is not about patriotism in the wake of 9/11. Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals are brave, patriotic Americans who put their lives on the line for our country every day in defense of our liberties and freedoms even while denied their own at home. Nor is this a debate about military readiness. Bigotry undermines military readiness. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” harms national security as we lose critical personnel, and commanders focus on people’s bedroom behavior rather than their job performance. Twenty-four nations have dropped their ban on gays and lesbians in the military—including such battle-tested forces as those of Great Britain and Israel—and all report that lifting their bans has been a non-event. Every credible military study, including a $1.3 million Rand study commissioned by the Pentagon, has concluded that lifting the military’s gay ban would work fine. What this debate is about is whether universities can be bribed into ignoring their policies of nondiscrimination when it applies to lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. It’s about whether the armed forces will play by the same rules as all other potential employers who come to campuses to recruit students. Many university presidents have said that permitting military recruiters on campus in no way signals a lessening of commitment to equality. That is disingenuous at best. Harvard’s president, Larry Summers, has appropriately condemned Harvard’s witch hunt of gay students in the 1920’s that has recently come to light. But is Harvard so much better when it accepts hundreds of millions of dollars from an institution that witch hunts lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans today? What should Harvard Law School and its sister institutions do? The most principled stand would be to “divest,” to be willing to forego the Pentagon’s research grants. But if universities banded together, the military would have to back down and the Solomon Amendment would have no teeth. For the armed forces don’t want to lose the talents and skills of the university researchers any more than the universities want to lose the federal funding. (Some have suggested filing a lawsuit, but the likelihood of success is minimal and will not cure the underlying discrimination.) But if Harvard is unwilling to take the most principled stand, it should invest in equality an amount equal to what it is receiving to deny equality. It should invest in lesbian, gay, and bisexual equality in an amount equal to at least one percent of the funds it would have lost had it stood for nondiscrimination. If Harvard gains $325 million by forcing the law school to discriminate, it should invest $3.25 million in an effort to end discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation in the military. Underwriting a conference, hosting guest speakers, endowing an academic studies program or fellowships would all be good starts, but not sufficient given the magnitude of discrimination being endorsed. Harvard should invest in national, state, and local organizations that are fighting anti-gay discrimination and harassment on the front lines, and—along with its sister institutions—should hire a team of lobbyists, as it does on other matters of importance to it, to oppose the Solomon Amendment and “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Such an investment would indicate a return to Harvard’s strong commitment to nondiscrimination for every patriotic American. And patriotism is, after all, about honoring the nation’s core values of freedom and equality for all. The federal government should not be exempt from such noble ideals, and respected institutions such as Harvard should play a lead role in changing the military’s ways.
Dixon Osburn is executive director and cofounder of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington, DC.
