One of These Recruiters is Not Like the Others

During this season of job-hunting and on-campus interviewing, OUTLaw wants to remind you that one of the recruiters interviewing today is not like the others. Unlike every other recruiter who comes on campus, the U.S. Military is exempted from following the school’s anti-discrimination policy. The US Military openly discriminates in its hiring, and more importantly, in its firing practices. Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people are allowed to and even encouraged to serve, but only in silence and always with the fear that they will be expelled if they are outed.

There are an estimated 65,000 LGBT service members on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces. They serve in every branch, are stationed at every installation. If you put them together in a unit, they would make up over half the ground troops in Iraq. They serve willingly and ably. Yet every day they face not only the threat of being killed in combat, but also the threat of being kicked out for being gay. And they are kicked out, at a rate of two a day since Congress passed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 1993.

LGBT service members risk their lives in exchange for unequal treatment, unequal compensation, and the constant threat of discharge. Most don’t date, find partners, start families. If they do, their families are denied recognition and every benefit, ranging from healthcare to death benefits. Under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell our Armed Forces are filled with soldiers who are serving in silence.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell violates the school’s anti-discrimination policy, but in 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law that denies funding to schools that refuse military recruiters access to campus.

We can’t change the UCLA policy that grants military recruiters access to the school, but we can encourage Congress to end the discriminatory ban on LGBT people in the military. Stop by OUTLaw’s table in the courtyard today from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. and sign a petition encouraging Congress to end the ban or go to http://www.sldn.org/ to sign it today. The petitions are also available on OUTLaw’s board in the hallway.