Women soldiers sue to lift combat ban
Lawsuit seeks end to restrictions based 'solely on the basis of sex'
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Maj. Anthony Deiss/FlickrArmy Staff Sgt. Janelle Flottmeyer holds her nephew during a welcome home ceremony for her unit in Pierre, S.D., on May 12. The unit returned from a year-long deployment to Afghanistan.
Two female are suing the U.S. government in an attempt to lift the country's ban on women in combat.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jane Baldwin and Col. Ellen Harding filed the federal lawsuit Wednesday to put an end to restrictions in combat positions “solely on the basis of sex," The Hill reported.
The litigation, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, names Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Secretary John McHugh as defendants, among others.
The women, who are both Army reservists, claim their military careers have been hampered by the ban on women in combat, and want the court to rule it unconstitutional for violating their equal protection rights under the Fifth Amendment, according to The Hill.
The Pentagon unveiled a new policy in February that opened up 14,000 more positions to women in the military. It still barred them from serving in infantry, armor and special-operations units whose main job is front-line combat, Reuters reported.
Women make up about 14.5 percent of active-duty military personnel, according to Pentagon figures. At least 144 female troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 860 have been wounded since the conflicts began, Bloomberg reported.
Defense Department spokesman George Little declined to comment on the lawsuit.
He did say in an e-mail that Panetta “is strongly committed to examining the expansion of roles for women in the U.S. military, as evidenced by the recent step of opening up thousands of more assignments to women.”
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.
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afghanistan, army, combat, department of defense, fifth amendment, iraq, john mchugh, leon panetta, women's rightsMore by Sarah Wolfe
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