Alyssa Dominguez Period 3 AP US History

• The "Don't ask, don't tell" was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration

• The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service.

• The policy was introduced as a compromise measure in 1993 by President Bill Clinton who campaigned in 1992 on the promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation.

• Commander Craig Quigley, a Navy spokesman, expressed the opposition of many in the military at the time when he said, "Homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous" and that in shared shower situations, heterosexuals would have an "uncomfortable feeling of someone watching"

• The act prohibited any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing his or her sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces.

• The act specified that service members who disclose that they are homosexual or engage in homosexual conduct should be separated (discharged) except when a service member's conduct was "for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service" or when it "would not be in the best interest of the armed forces".

• Barry Goldwater, a former Republican Senator and a retired Major General, who argued on behalf of allowing service by open gays and lesbians. In a June 1993 Washington Post opinion piece, Goldwater wrote: "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight,"

• On May 5, 1993, Gregory M. Herek, associate research psychologist at the University of California at Davis stated, "The research data show that there is nothing about lesbians and gay men that makes them inherently unfit for military service, and there is nothing about heterosexuals that makes them inherently unable to work and live with gay people in close quarters."

(BARRY GOLDWATER)

• Clinton’s declaration put the president at odds with top military leaders and with a number of key civilians who had oversight responsibilities for the armed forces. After heated debate, Clinton managed to gain support for a compromise measure under which homosexual servicemen and servicewomen could remain in the military if they did not openly declare their sexual orientation

• Military officers were overwhelmingly opposed to that approach, fearing that the mere presence of homosexuals in the armed forces would undermine morale.

• An association of law schools had argued that allowing military recruiting at their institutions compromised their ability to exercise their free speech rights in opposition to discrimination based on sexual orientation as represented by DADT.

• For a variety of reasons, the policy did little to change the behaviour of commanders; gay and lesbian soldiers continued to be discharged from service. During the Iraq War, which began in 2003, the policy came under further scrutiny, as many Arab linguists who were gay were discharged by the military.

Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc.(2006)

Log Cabin Republicans v. United States (2011)

Witt v. Department of the Air Force

DADT was upheld by five federal Courts of Appeal.

McVeigh v. Cohen (1998)

Cammermeyer v. Perry (1992)

Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc.(2006)

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• It was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the federal government, under the Solomon Amendment, could constitutionally withhold funding from universities if they refuse to give military recruiters access to school resources.

• The Court, in an 8-0 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, held that the government could deny federal funds to schools that do not permit recruitment.

• The opinion also holds that Congress, through the "raise and support Armies" clause, could even directly force schools to allow recruiting without threatening the withholding of funds, if they so desired, and that, as a result, no question of "unconstitutional conditions" arises.

• The Supreme Court held oral arguments on December 6, 2005, and issued an 8-0 decision March 6, 2006, finding the Solomon Amendment constitutional.

• In Fall 2003, Forum for the Academic & Institution Rights, Inc. (FAIR), an association of law schools and law faculty asked the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey to enjoin enforcement of the Solomon Amendment on the grounds it violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. The District Court ruled against FAIR.

Cammermeyer v. Perry

• 1992 After Cammermeyer’s discharge, Lambda Legal and the Northwest Womens’ Law Center file lawsuit in federal court in Washington state on her behalf. The lawsuit challenges both Cammermeyer’s discharge and the military’s regulations that mandated that lesbians and gay men be separated from the service.

• June 1994 Victory! U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly holds that the former (pre “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) ban on gays in the military was unconstitutional and orders the Army to reinstate Cammermeyer.

• October 1996 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses the government’s appeal as moot, because the government was not challenging Cammermeyer’s reinstatement and had rescinded the regulations that were held unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit denies the government’s request to vacate the district court’s ruling, sending the case back to the district court to consider whether that should be done.

• 1997 The district court denies the government’s motion to vacate, maintaining the value of the victory as precedent.

Log Cabin Republicans v. United States

• Phillips advised the parties pre-trial that she would not apply rational basis review, the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny, to the case. Instead, in accordance with the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Witt v. Department of the Air Force, she would apply intermediate scrutiny, meaning to be constitutional, DADT must significantly further an important governmental interest that can be advanced in no other way.

• LCR initially filed the suit in 2004. A bench trial began on July 13, 2010, before Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The Justice Department had unsuccessfully sought to have the suit dismissed, arguing that as long as Congress had a rational basis for passing DADT in 1993, then it is constitutional. The Justice Department also asserted at trial that LCR did not have standing to challenge the law.

• On September 29, 2011, the Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's decision, ruling that the legislative repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" rendered the case moot. The dismissal left the lower court ruling without value as precedent.[38] On November 9, 2011, the Court denied LCR's motion to hear the case en banc, stating that none of the judges voted to rehear it. LCR announced that it would not appeal to the United States Supreme Court.[39]

Witt v. Department of the Air Force

• In April 2006, Margaret Witt, a major in the United States Air Force who was being investigated for homosexuality, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the grounds that DADT violates substantive due process, the Equal Protection Clause, and procedural due process.

• The Obama administration declined to appeal, allowing a May 3, 2009, deadline to pass, leaving Witt as binding on the entire Ninth Circuit, and returning the case to the District Court.[48] On September 24, 2010, District Judge Ronald B. Leighton ruled that Witt's constitutional rights had been violated by her discharge and that she must be reinstated to the Air Force.

• The government filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit on November 23, but made no attempt to have the trial court's ruling stayed pending the outcome.[50] In a settlement announced on May 10, 2011, the Air Force agreed to drop its appeal and remove Witt's discharge from her military record. She will retire with full benefits.

McVeigh v. Cohen

• In January 1998, Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh (not to be confused with convicted Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy J. McVeigh) won a preliminary injunction from a U.S. district court that prevented his discharge from the U.S. Navy for "homosexual conduct" after 17 years of service. His lawsuit did not challenge the DADT policy, but asked the court to hold the military accountable for adhering to the policy's particulars.

• AOL apologized to McVeigh and paid him damages. McVeigh reached a settlement with the Navy that paid his legal expenses and allowed him to retire with full benefits in July. The New York Times called Sporkin's ruling "a victory for gay rights, with implications for the millions of people who use computer on-line services"

• The Navy had investigated McVeigh's sexual orientation based on his AOL email account name and user profile. He called the Navy's investigation "a search and destroy mission" against McVeigh. The case also attracted attention because a navy paralegal had misrepresented himself when querying AOL for information about McVeigh's account.

• President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent the certification required by the Repeal Act to Congress on July 22, 2011, setting the end of DADT for September 20, 2011.

• During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Senator Barack Obama advocated a full repeal of the laws barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military.

• As president he advocated a policy change to allow gay personnel to serve openly in the armed forces, stating that the U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops expelled from the military, including language experts fluent in Arabic, because of DADT.

• On the eve of the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., October 10, 2009, Obama stated in a speech before the Human Rights Campaign that he would end the ban, but he offered no timetable.

• This research brief quantifies how the United States military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy affects retention rates among lesbian, gay, and bisexual military personnel. If the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy had not been instituted, an estimated 4,000 lesbian, gay, and bisexual military personnel would have been retained each year since 1994. The military intends to add more than 18,000 new troops each year for the next five years. If patterns observed in 2004 were to continue for the next five years, the estimated retained LGB personnel would account for nearly one in six of the additional troops required.