By JAMES DAO
For 17 years, Maj. Margaret Witt rose steadily through the Air Force and Air Force Reserves, winning plaudits from colleagues, strong performance reviews from superiors and service medals from the department. A flight nurse, she treated wounded troops during Desert Storm and was featured in Air Force promotional materials for years.
Maj. Margaret Witt, discharged from the Air Force in 2007, won a significant appeals court victory against the military. Major Witt is also a lesbian. To hide her sexual orientation, she skipped military functions where dates were invited. She dodged questions about her personal life. And she avoided inviting colleagues home, lest some possession — a book, a photograph — might tip them off.
“You can’t be honest,” Major Witt, 46, said in a recent interview. “I didn’t want to answer questions, even to say what my weekend plans were.”
Her efforts to maintain a low profile ended in 2004, when the jilted husband of a woman Major Witt had started to date sent a note to the Air Force disclosing her orientation. After an investigation and hearing, the Air Force discharged her in 2007 under the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
But her case is far from over. Major Witt sued, and, in what will be one of the most closely watched challenges to the law to date, she is scheduled to appear in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., on Monday to argue that the Air Force violated her rights and must reinstate her. The court appearance comes at a time of growing debate about the policy. On Thursday, a federal judge in California ruled that the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was unconstitutional.
Major Witt’s case has already set an important precedent. After a federal judge dismissed her lawsuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated it, ruling in 2008 that the government had to meet a higher standard of scrutiny before intruding on her private life. The panel sent her case back to the district court for trial.
If Major Witt prevails in the district court, she will become the first woman allowed to serve openly as a lesbian since don’t ask, don’t tell was enacted in 1993. The law, however, would continue to apply to other service members.
“It’s not as if she would go around telling people,” said James E. Lobsenz, a lawyer who, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, is representing Major Witt. “But if someone asked, ‘Are you a lesbian,’ she could respond, ‘yes,’ and not be thrown out.”
Under don’t ask, don’t tell, the simple acknowledgment of one’s homosexuality can lead to discharge.
In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit said that to discharge Major Witt, the government must prove that removing her, or any other individual service member, is the only way to significantly advance an important policy. The ruling applies only in the Ninth Circuit, which is based in San Francisco and covers much of the West.
The government has asserted that Congress firmly established that homosexual behavior undermines morale and military readiness when it enacted don’t ask, don’t tell. But the Obama administration did not appeal the ruling, saying it would wait until Major Witt’s trial concluded in the lower court.
If Major Witt wins and is allowed to serve openly as a lesbian, the Justice Department argues in court papers, it will undermine morale in the services by creating two standards of fairness: one for her and another for everyone else.
Some legal experts and supporters of don’t ask, don’t tell say the Ninth Circuit’s ruling could also open the door to challenges to other policies that attempt to set uniform standards across the military.
Prof. William A. Woodruff, a retired Army lawyer who teaches at Campbell University School of Law in Raleigh N.C., said that if the Witt ruling stood, individuals could challenge other kinds of discharges, like those for excess weight or poor eyesight.
“Traditionally, the Supreme Court has said federal justices should not be playing in military policy,” he said. “Those are areas where the judiciary does not have the experience or knowledge to substitute their judgment for that of the military commander.”
But opponents of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy say such concerns are overblown. The Ninth Circuit set a higher bar for discharging gay and lesbian service members, they say, because the Supreme Court has established that adults have a fundamental right to consensual sexual acts.
To advocates of gay rights, Major Witt’s trial will provide an unparalleled opportunity to attack the central premise of the law: that allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly divides units and undermines military readiness.
Major Witt’s lawyers say former colleagues will testify that she was an effective leader and that her discharge, not her presence, hurt morale in her Reserves unit, the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. Several of the witnesses say they suspected she was a lesbian but did not mind serving alongside her.
The real audience for the trial, gay rights advocates say, is Congress, where legislation supported by the Obama administration to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell is inching forward. Opponents of the law are hoping that Major Witt’s trial will give the legislation a push.
“The trial will reveal the lie that allowing openly gay service members to remain in the military impairs unit cohesion and morale,” said Jon Davidson, legal director for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal services organization for gay men and lesbians.
For Major Witt, the trial offers something more personal: the possibility of vindication and the return to a job she says she loved.
In the interview, the major said she had wanted to serve in the Air Force since childhood, when her parents would drive her by nearby McChord Air Force Base so she could admire the aircraft. She joined the Air Force soon after earning a nursing degree and served about eight years on active duty before joining the Reserves in 1995.
Major Witt said she had considered herself a lesbian nearly from the time she joined the military, but managed to keep it secret until 2004, when she began the affair that triggered her investigation. The woman with whom she was having the affair left her husband and remains Major Witt’s partner today.
The government argues that committing adultery as an officer was another reason to discharge Major Witt.
There was a silver lining to her discharge, Major Witt said. Before it happened, she had hidden her orientation from her parents, both retired schoolteachers. But the night before she was to publicly announce her lawsuit against the Air Force in 2006, she sat them down.
“I was so worried about disappointing them,” she said. “But they said: ‘What can we do? We love you.’ It is absolutely the best thing in my life that has come out of this.”
-end-
Her efforts to maintain a low profile ended in 2004, when the jilted husband of a woman Major Witt had started to date sent a note to the Air Force disclosing her orientation. After an investigation and hearing, the Air Force discharged her in 2007 under the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
But her case is far from over. Major Witt sued, and, in what will be one of the most closely watched challenges to the law to date, she is scheduled to appear in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., on Monday to argue that the Air Force violated her rights and must reinstate her. The court appearance comes at a time of growing debate about the policy. On Thursday, a federal judge in California ruled that the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was unconstitutional.
Major Witt’s case has already set an important precedent. After a federal judge dismissed her lawsuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated it, ruling in 2008 that the government had to meet a higher standard of scrutiny before intruding on her private life. The panel sent her case back to the district court for trial.
If Major Witt prevails in the district court, she will become the first woman allowed to serve openly as a lesbian since don’t ask, don’t tell was enacted in 1993. The law, however, would continue to apply to other service members.
“It’s not as if she would go around telling people,” said James E. Lobsenz, a lawyer who, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, is representing Major Witt. “But if someone asked, ‘Are you a lesbian,’ she could respond, ‘yes,’ and not be thrown out.”
Under don’t ask, don’t tell, the simple acknowledgment of one’s homosexuality can lead to discharge.
In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit said that to discharge Major Witt, the government must prove that removing her, or any other individual service member, is the only way to significantly advance an important policy. The ruling applies only in the Ninth Circuit, which is based in San Francisco and covers much of the West.
The government has asserted that Congress firmly established that homosexual behavior undermines morale and military readiness when it enacted don’t ask, don’t tell. But the Obama administration did not appeal the ruling, saying it would wait until Major Witt’s trial concluded in the lower court.
If Major Witt wins and is allowed to serve openly as a lesbian, the Justice Department argues in court papers, it will undermine morale in the services by creating two standards of fairness: one for her and another for everyone else.
Some legal experts and supporters of don’t ask, don’t tell say the Ninth Circuit’s ruling could also open the door to challenges to other policies that attempt to set uniform standards across the military.
Prof. William A. Woodruff, a retired Army lawyer who teaches at Campbell University School of Law in Raleigh N.C., said that if the Witt ruling stood, individuals could challenge other kinds of discharges, like those for excess weight or poor eyesight.
“Traditionally, the Supreme Court has said federal justices should not be playing in military policy,” he said. “Those are areas where the judiciary does not have the experience or knowledge to substitute their judgment for that of the military commander.”
But opponents of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy say such concerns are overblown. The Ninth Circuit set a higher bar for discharging gay and lesbian service members, they say, because the Supreme Court has established that adults have a fundamental right to consensual sexual acts.
To advocates of gay rights, Major Witt’s trial will provide an unparalleled opportunity to attack the central premise of the law: that allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly divides units and undermines military readiness.
Major Witt’s lawyers say former colleagues will testify that she was an effective leader and that her discharge, not her presence, hurt morale in her Reserves unit, the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. Several of the witnesses say they suspected she was a lesbian but did not mind serving alongside her.
The real audience for the trial, gay rights advocates say, is Congress, where legislation supported by the Obama administration to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell is inching forward. Opponents of the law are hoping that Major Witt’s trial will give the legislation a push.
“The trial will reveal the lie that allowing openly gay service members to remain in the military impairs unit cohesion and morale,” said Jon Davidson, legal director for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a legal services organization for gay men and lesbians.
For Major Witt, the trial offers something more personal: the possibility of vindication and the return to a job she says she loved.
In the interview, the major said she had wanted to serve in the Air Force since childhood, when her parents would drive her by nearby McChord Air Force Base so she could admire the aircraft. She joined the Air Force soon after earning a nursing degree and served about eight years on active duty before joining the Reserves in 1995.
Major Witt said she had considered herself a lesbian nearly from the time she joined the military, but managed to keep it secret until 2004, when she began the affair that triggered her investigation. The woman with whom she was having the affair left her husband and remains Major Witt’s partner today.
The government argues that committing adultery as an officer was another reason to discharge Major Witt.
There was a silver lining to her discharge, Major Witt said. Before it happened, she had hidden her orientation from her parents, both retired schoolteachers. But the night before she was to publicly announce her lawsuit against the Air Force in 2006, she sat them down.
“I was so worried about disappointing them,” she said. “But they said: ‘What can we do? We love you.’ It is absolutely the best thing in my life that has come out of this.”
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