A military college student said in a lawsuit filed Thursday that armed services officials deemed him unfit for service because he tested positive for HIV.
The 20-year-old student from Revere, Massachusetts, said in the complaint against state and federal military officials that he tested positive for HIV in October 2020 during his sophomore year at the nation’s oldest private military college, Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.
The student, who is identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe, said in the complaint filed in federal court in Burlington, Vermont, that he was deemed unfit for service and dropped from the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and the Vermont Army National Guard despite being healthy, asymptomatic and on a treatment regimen that renders his viral load undetectable.
His lawsuit notes he was informed he would not be able to get a scholarship through the ROTC or be entitled to other benefits related to military service, such as a state tuition waiver and medical and dental coverage.
Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group that filed the lawsuit on the student’s behalf, provided redacted copies of the student’s discharge documents, which show he was terminated from the guard in January for being “not medically qualified.”
Spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Vermont National Guard, which are both named in the suit, declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
