Female officers sue US government over ban on women in combat

Two female soldiers filed suit Wednesday against the US Army and the Department of Defense to end a policy which bars women from combat units and related posts. The women claim the policy has limited the potential of both women's careers and that the ban is a violation of both the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. The suit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia by a group of University of Virginia Law students and Professor Anne Coughlin who claimed in a statement that "[n]o other employer in the country may tell a woman that she is barred from the job merely because she is a woman. It is time for the Pentagon to stop relying on sex as a proxy for fitness to serve."

Last year, a US military panel, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, recommended that women be allowed to serve on the front lines of combat. Their report said that integration of women into combat forces would have no ill effects and recommended a "time-phased" approach to the implementation of new combat policies that would create additional career options for women that include "direct ground combat." The suit filed this week comes on the heels of another civil rights push in military policy—last year's repeal of the controversial DADT - "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. Last year Australia became the fourth nation which permitted women to serve in combat roles.

(Published by Jurist.org - May 27, 2012)