ACLU sues over policy barring women from ground combat

Yahoo! News ^ | 11/27/12 | Peter Henderson | Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union sued on Tuesday on behalf of four U.S. servicewomen to challenge a longstanding policy barring women from thousands of ground combat positions, citing the changing nature of warfare and fairness for career soldiers.

The civil rights group argued in a legal complaint filed in federal court in Northern California that a military policy to bar women from combat roles on the basis of gender was unconstitutional.

"Nearly a century after women first earned the right of suffrage, the combat exclusion policy still denies women a core component of full citizenship - serving on equal footing in the military defense of our nation," reads the suit, on behalf of four women soldiers who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Their career opportunities also had been limited by the policy, the women said.

The lawsuit comes as the Department of Defense has slowly been dropping such gender-based restrictions. In February, it allowed some women to serve in combat battalions, a unit of 300 to 1,000 members, and dropped restrictions on women serving in units that were required to be based with combat units.

But women are still not allowed in infantry, or in smaller units engaged in combat. Women are barred from more the 238,000 positions, the ACLU said. But in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no clear battle lines, women have been pulled into combat in spite of the policy, the group added.

[ansel12]

Your posts are kind of weird, this doesn’t sound like a good topic for you.

[kearnyirish2]

You’re probably right; the last military people I knew left over a decade ago. It isn’t a bad topic for me; it isn’t a topic at all.

[ansel12]

The topic is real and important, just probably not for you.

[kearnyirish2]

Understood.