Pentagon ends long-standing restrictions on service members with HIV
LGBTQ advocates are praising the move while acknowledging that people with HIV remain barred from enlisting in the U.S. military.
The Defense Department has officially ended a 1980s-era policy that restricted HIV-positive service members from deploying overseas and being promoted into leadership and management positions.
The updated guidance officially took effect Monday, according to a memo addressed to military leadership from the office of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. A judge struck down the decades-old policy in early April.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of Eastern Virginia found that the Pentagon’s classification of HIV as a chronic condition did not reflect modern scientific understandings of the virus.
In one of two orders, Brinkema banned the Pentagon from “separating or discharging” asymptomatic HIV-positive service members with undetectable viral loads solely because they have HIV.
The two cases involved three men who sued the military for discrimination based on their HIV statuses. One of the plaintiffs, Army National Guard Sgt. Nick Harrison, who was denied a promotion because of his HIV status, called the Pentagon’s reversal a “generally positive move,” but he said it came only after advocates were forced to resort to “kicking and screaming” in the court system.
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