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9th Circuit Instructs District Court on Next Stage in Trans Military Litigation

Posted on: June 18th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a ruling on June 14 on several appeals filed by the Justice Department in Karnoski v. Trump, one of the lawsuits challenging President Trump’s transgender military policy.  The result was not a complete win for the government or the plaintiffs, but the case will go forward before U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in Seattle using different legal tests than those she had employed in issuing the rulings that the government had appealed.  Because one of the other challenges to the policy is pending in a district court in Riverside, California, which is also within the 9th Circuit, the court’s ruling effectively applies to both cases.  Karnoski v. Trump, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 17878, 2019 WL 2479442 (9th Cir., June 14, 2019).

Since neither party is likely to be fully satisfied with the ruling, which does not fully embrace either party’s position on the appeals, it is possible that one or both will seek reconsideration by a larger panel of the circuit court.  In the 9th Circuit, such panels consist of the Chief Judge of the Circuit and ten active circuit judges drawn at random, together with any senior judges who sat on the panel.  The panel that issued the June 14 ruling had two senior judges – Raymond C. Fisher and Richard R. Clifton – and one active judge, Conseulo M. Callahan.  Fisher was appointed by Bill Clinton, while Clifton and Callahan were appointed by George W. Bush.  District Judge Pechman was appointed by Bill Clinton.

For purposes of simplicity, this description of where the lawsuit stands will refer to the policy announced by then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in June 2016 as the 2016 policy, the policy announced in tweets and a White House memorandum by President Donald Trump in July and August 2017 as the 2017 policy, and the policy recommended to Trump by then-Defense Secretary James Mattis in February 2018 as the 2018 policy.

The 2016 policy ended the long-standing regulatory ban on military service by transgender people, but delayed allowing transgender people to enlist until July 2017.  In June 2017, Secretary Mattis announced that the ban on enlistment would be extended to the end of 2017.  The July tweet and August 2017 memorandum announced a return to the ban on service and enlistment that predated the 2016 policy, but delayed re-implementation of the ban until March 2018, pending submission of an implementation plan to the president by Mattis, while providing that the ban on enlistment would remain in effect.

The plan Mattis recommended in February 2018, and that Trump authorized him to adopt, abandoned the total ban concept and is complicated to explain. The policy attempted to shift its focus, at least in terms of concept, from transgender status to the condition of gender dysphoria as described in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.  The 2018 plan allows some transgender people to serve under certain conditions, depending upon whether and when they were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, whether and when they intended to transition or had transitioned, and whether they were willing to serve in their gender as identified at birth.  People who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria were barred from enlisting, and currently serving transgender personnel who had not been diagnosed and initiated the process of transitioning by the time the 2018 policy went into effect could continue serving only if they foreswore transitioning while in the service.  However, those who were serving and had begun transitioning before the 2018 policy went into effect could continue serving in the gender to which they had transitioned.  People who identify as transgender but have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and are content to serve in the gender identified at birth can enlist and serve, but must leave the service if they are subsequently diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  The bottom line, which was a motivation for Trump’s initial tweet, is that once the 2018 policy was in place, the military would not be funding sex-reassignment surgery for anyone and people could not transition in the military.

Beginning in August 2017 and continuing through that summer, challengers file four lawsuits challenging the 2017 policy on constitutional grounds in Baltimore, Washington (D.C.), Seattle, and Riverside (California).  All of the major LGBT litigation groups were representing the plaintiff in one or more of the cases.  Within months, each of the federal district judges had granted motions for preliminary injunctions to prevent the 2017 policy from going into effect.  In order to issue the injunctions, all four judges had to find that some or all of the plaintiffs’ legal arguments had a fair chance of succeeding on the merits, and that the injunctions were necessary to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs by preserving the status quo without harming the public interest.  The district judges refused to “stay” their injunctions, and on the east coast they were backed up by the 4th and D.C. Circuits, leading the government to abandon an attempt to appeal the denial of stays for the west coast cases in the 9th Circuit.  The district judges also rejected motions by the government to dismiss the cases.  Thus, on January 1, 2018, the Defense Department was required to accept enlistment applications from transgender people, and the 2016 policy remained in effect for transgender people who were actively serving in the military.

Meanwhile, Secretary Mattis appointed a Task Force as directed by the August 2017 White House memo to prepare a report in support of an implementation policy recommendation, which he submitted to the White House in February 2018, urging the president to revoke the 2017 policy and to allow Mattis to implement his recommended policy.  The Task Force was described in various ways at various times by the government, but the names and titles of the members were not listed in the written report released to the public, and the government has resisted discovery requests for their identity and information about how the Task Force report was prepared.

Once Secretary Mattis had the go-ahead from Trump to implement his recommendation, the Justice Department moved in all four courts to get the preliminary injunctions lifted, arguing that the 2018 policy was sufficiently different from the 2017 policy to render the existing injunctions irrelevant.  All four of the district judges rejected that argument and refused to dissolve or modify their injunctions.  The government appealed and ultimately was able to persuade the Supreme Court earlier this year to stay the injunctions and allow the policy to go into effect early in April. Although the 2018 policyhas been in effect for over two months, there have not been reports about discharges of serving transgender personnel.

Significantly, the 9th Circuit panel implied without ruling that the preliminary injunction against the 2017 policy seemed justified.

Meanwhile, the parties in the four cases were litigating about the plaintiffs’ attempts to conduct discovery on order to surface the information necessary to prove their constitutional claims against the policy.  The government fought the discovery requests doggedly, arguing that the internal workings of its military policy-making should not be subject to disclosure in civil litigation, referring to but not formally invoking concepts of decisional privilege and executive privilege, which courts have recognized to varying extent in prior cases challenging government policies.

In the Karnoski case in Seattle, Judge Pechman was highly skeptical about the government’s arguments, having questioned whether the policies were motivated by politics rather than professional military judgment, and she issued an order for the government to comply with a large portion of the requests for documents and information after prolonged negotiations by the lawyers largely came to naught.  The government appealed her discovery orders to the 9th Circuit, together with refusal to rethink the preliminary injunction in light of the substitution of the 2018 policy for the 2017 policy.

The June 14 opinion describes how the case should go forward, taking account of the Supreme Court’s action in having stayed the preliminary injunctions but not dissolved them.  The 9th Circuit panel agreed with the D.C. Circuit, which had concluded earlier in the year that the D.C. district court was wrong to conclude that the 2018 policy was just a version of the 2017 policy with some exceptions.  The appellate courts held that the 2018 policy recommended by Mattis was no longer the total ban announced in 2017, so the district court should evaluate the 2018 policy.

The court rejected the government’s argument that shifting the exclusionary policy from “transgender status” to “gender dysphoria” eliminated the equal protection issue, finding from the wording of the Task Force report and the policy as summarized in writing by Mattis that the policy continued to target transgender people in various ways, regardless whether they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, through the conditions it places on their service.  This was a “win” for the plaintiffs on an important contested point.

Judge Pechman had concluded that gender identity is a “suspect classification,” so for purposes of evaluating the constitutionality of the policy under an Equal Protection challenge, it should be presumed unconstitutional with a heavy burden placed on the government to prove a compelling need for the policy.  The 9th Circuit panel decided there was not sufficient precedent to support that approach, but did agree with the position taken by the district judges in the other three cases that the policy should be subjected to “heightened scrutiny,” similar to the approach courts take in sex discrimination cases, but tempered by consideration of the degree to which the policy merits deference as a product of professional military judgment.

Judge Pechman had concluded that the 2017 policy did not merit judicial deference, because there was no evidence before the court that it was the product of professional military judgment.  Rather, as all the district judges had concluded, based on the way the policy was announced in a surprise tweet and the failure of the government to provide any information about how it was formulated, the court’s analysis should not be tempered by judicial deference.

Now, however, said the 9th Circuit panel, the government had described, in a general way, how Mattis’s Task Force was put together, and t the 2018 policy was allegedly the result of many meetings, study, much interviewing of military personnel, and a 44—page report.  If one accepts the government’s description of the process – still not identifying by name the Task Force members or getting into any real detail about the basis for their conclusions – the court said, there is an argument that the 2018 policy should be accorded judicial deference, but whether to do so, and how that would interrelate with the heightened scrutiny standard, were questions to be addressed by the district court.  Thus, the task for Judge Pechman now is to determine whether the 2018 policy is sufficiently a product of military judgment to justify applying a deferential standard of review.  Some degree of cooperating by the government in the discovery process is crucially necessary for such an analysis to take place.

However, as to discovery, the 9th Circuit panel expressed concern that Judge Pechman had not accorded sufficient weight to the concepts of decisional and executive privilege in formulating her discovery order, and directed that she refer to guidelines set out in some recent court opinions.  In particular, the court disagreed with her order that the government provide detailed privilege logs with descriptions of all the documents for which there were privilege concerns, and suggested that an approach focused on broadly described categories of documents and information could suffice for an initial determination of the degree to which privilege might be claimed to block disclosure.

The bottom line is that the Karnoski case goes back to Judge Pechman for a fresh analysis of whether plaintiffs should be entitled to a preliminary injunction against the 2018 policy, using heightened scrutiny and taking account of privilege claims in the discovery process, along the lines outlined by the court.  This opinion also sends a message to the district court in Riverside, where similar government motions are pending.  Meanwhile, the discovery battles continue in the cases pending in Baltimore and Washington.

In light of the Trump Administration’s general policy of fighting against demands for disclosure of internal executive branch decision-making, whether by Congressional committees or litigants, it is difficult to predict when there will be sufficient discovery to provide a basis for further rulings on preliminary injunctions or the ultimate merits of the four court challenges.  The lawsuits succeed in blocking implementation of the total ban and the 2017 policy, and in delaying implementation of the 2018 policy for more than a year.

The litigation will not be finally resolved before Inauguration Day in January 2021 unless the Trump Administration is willing to negotiate some sort of compromise settlement satisfactory to the plaintiffs.  If any of the current Democratic presidential candidates is elected and takes office, a quickly-issued executive order restoring the 2016 policy could put an end to the entire transgender military service drama and restore sanity to an issue that has been clouded by politics and substantial misinformation, such as Trump’s recent grossly-exaggerated statements about the cost of health care for transgender personnel.

D.C. Circuit Panel Dissolves Preliminary Injunction Against Trump Trans Military Ban

Posted on: January 4th, 2019 by Art Leonard No Comments

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on January 4 that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly should not have denied a motion earlier this year by the Justice Department to dissolve a preliminary injunction she issued more than a year ago to block the Trump Administration’s ban on transgender military service from going into effect. The court did not issue a formal opinion, instead releasing a “Judgement” that was not designated for publication, although it indicated that “separate opinions” by the judges “will be filed at a later date.”  The case is now called Jane Doe 2 v. Shanahan, as Trump has been removed as an individual defendant, and Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan is now the lead defendant.

The ruling, although quickly described in the press as a victory for the Trump Administration, will have no immediate effect, because nationwide preliminary injunctions against implementation of the ban issued by three other U.S. District Courts remain in effect. However, the explanation issued by the judges marks the first time that any federal judge has found it appropriate to adopt a deferential standard of review either to Trump’s original policy declaration pronounced through twitter messages on July 26, 2017, to a subsequent White House memo amplifying the policy, or to the policy adopted for implementation by former Defense Secretary James Mattis with the president’s approval in February 2018.

In her October 30, 2017, ruling granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a nationwide preliminary injunction against implementation of the ban, Judge Kollar-Kotelly found that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that the ban announced by Trump in July and amplified in the August 2017 memorandum violated their equal protection rights under the 5th Amendment, and allowing the ban to go into effect would cause irreparable injury to the plaintiffs while not shown to be harmful to national security, as alleged by the government.  See 275 F. Supp.3d 167.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly was the first to enjoin the ban, but three other district courts issued similar opinions authorizing virtually identical nationwide preliminary injunctions over the ensuing weeks, from courts located in Baltimore, Maryland, Seattle, Washington, and Riverside, California.

While the litigation was going on in the district courts, Secretary Mattis appointed a task force as directed in the White House memorandum, to devise an implementation plan for the ban. This was submitted to the president in February, 2018, in response to which he issued a new memorandum revoking his prior memorandum and authorizing Mattis to implement the plan he had proposed. Mattis’s plan was accompanied by a Report purportedly devised by this Task Force of “experts” (none of them named in the document or otherwise), although knowledgeable observers noted striking resemblances to articles published by conservative think-tanks opposed to transgender rights.

After Mattis adopted the plan for implementation, the Justice Department filed motions in the four district courts arguing that the preliminary injunctions should be dissolved because they were directed at a policy that had been revoked, and the “new” Mattis policy was sufficiently different from what Trump had originally announced to change the analysis. Thus far, three of the district courts have denied the Justice Department’s motion, which is still pending in the fourth court. The three judges who denied the motion all concluded that the Mattis policy was substantially the same as the Trump policy that they had preliminarily enjoined, and that no new development justified allowing the ban to go into effect while the lawsuits played out. In the fourth case, the judge who issued the injunction retired in June 2018 and the case was assigned to a new judge, who has yet to rule on the motion.

The Justice Department appealed the three rulings to the D.C. and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeals. As of January 4, the 9th Circuit had not issued a ruling on the appeal, but had refused to stay the injunctions issued by the district judges in Seattle and Riverside.

Impatient at the pace of litigation, the Solicitor General filed Petitions in the Supreme Court late in November seeking to leapfrog the courts of appeals and have the Supreme Court directly address whether the preliminary injunctions should be lifted, and then filed motions with the Court in all three cases in December, seeking a “stay” of the injunctions or their narrowing to apply only to the plaintiffs rather than to have nationwide effect. Those petitions and motions had been scheduled by the Court to be discussed in its private conference on January 11.

The D.C. Circuit panel that ruled on January 4 consisted of Judges Thomas B. Griffith (appointed by George W. Bush), Robert L. Wilkins (appointed by Barack Obama), and Senior Judge Stephen F. Williams (appointed by Ronald Reagan).

The panel found that Judge Kollar-Kotelly had “clearly” erred in concluding that the Mattis policy adopted in February 2018 was substantially the same as the Trump policy that she had preliminarily enjoined in October 2017. The court pointed out that unlike the original policy, Mattis’s plan was not a total ban. It “grandfathers” currently serving transgender personnel who had “come out” in reliance on former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s lifting of the long-standing ban on transgender military service effective July 1, 2016, many of whom then initiated transition, including in some cases complete surgical gender affirmation, and were successfully serving in the gender with which they identify. Mattis would let them continue to serve.

Furthermore, seeking to escape the equal protection arguments made by the plaintiffs and preliminarily accepted by the district judges, Mattis’s “experts” had reconfigured the ban to be based not on transgender identity, but rather on a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria,” the term used in the most recent addition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Now the government was arguing that it was disqualifying people who had been diagnosed with a professionally recognized medical condition, which the DSM describes in terms of symptoms that – at least as described in the DSM – would sound disabling.

Under Mattis’s version of the policy, anybody diagnosed with gender dysphoria would be disqualified from enlisting or from continuing to serve, unless they were “grandfathered” under the policy. Individuals who identify as transgender but have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria would be allowed to enlist and serve, provided they did not seek to transition and would serve in the gender with which they were identified at birth, called by the policy their “biological sex.”

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the four cases have pointed out that this is a semantic game, but the court of appeals indulges the government’s distinction between status and medical diagnosis, pointing out that the lawyers for the plaintiffs have stated in their briefs and arguments that not all transgender people are diagnosed with gender dysphoria or seek to transition. Thus, in the view of the court, agreeing with the Justice Department, the policy does not ban service by transgender people, as such – just by those diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who wish to transition and serve in other than their sex identified at birth.

The district judges had found that in practical terms this amounted to the same transgender ban that Trump had proclaimed, with the exception of the “grandfathered” personnel, estimated at about 900 people according to the January 4 D.C. Circuit ruling. But the court of appeals disagreed, finding it different.

Furthermore, said the court, since Mattis claimed to have adopted this policy on the recommendation of an “expert” Task Force that had produced a report, it was entitled to the judicial deference normally accorded to military personnel policies. For purposes of deciding on preliminary injunctive relief, the court of appeals found that the district court should have essentially taken the Justice Department’s representation of the policy at face value and not concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their equal protection claim.

At the same time, the D.C. panel said that it was not speaking to the ultimate merits of the case. The court said that it was vacating the preliminary injunction but “without prejudice,” which means that it is possible that after discovery has been concluded, the plaintiffs could come back and try to persuade the court that the policy was not entitled to deference and was not justified for the purposes cited by the government. This does not allow the ban to go into effect, as noted above, because nationwide preliminary injunctions remain in effect in three other cases.

Since the D.C. Circuit’s ruling gives the government exactly what it sought in its appeal, the Solicitor General should be withdrawing his petition and motion from the Supreme Court in this case. But since the 9th Circuit has not ruled on the other two appeals, the Petitions filed in those cases will still be before the Supreme Court at its January 11 conference. And the D.C. Circuit’s ruling may influence the district court in Baltimore, which has yet to rule on the government’s motion to dissolve the injunction in that case.

The plaintiffs are represented by Kevin Matthew Lamb, Paul Reinherz Quitma Wolfson, Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr, LLP, Washington, DC, Adam M. Cambier, Christopher R. Looney, Harriet Hoder, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, Alan E. Schoenfeld, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP, New York, NY, Amy Whelan, Christopher F. Stoll, Shannon P. Minter, National Center for Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, CA, Claire Laporte, Daniel L. McFadden, Kathleen M. Brill, Matthew E. Miller, Michael J. Licker, Rachel C. Hutchinson, Foley Hoag, LLP, Boston, MA, Jennifer Levi, Mary L. Bonauto, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, Boston, MA, and Nancy Lynn Schroeder, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, Los Angeles, CA.

Justice Department’s New Request to Implement Transgender Policy Denied by Seattle District Court

Posted on: June 19th, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

U.S. Senior District Judge Marsha J. Pechman issued an opinion on June 15, rejecting another attempt by the Trump Administration to get her to lift her preliminary injunction in Karnoski v. Trump and allow the latest version of President Trump’s ban on military service by transgender individuals to go into effect while they appeal her earlier rulings to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Hope springs eternal at the Justice Department, as their new motion does not really make any arguments that Judge Pechman did not reject in her earlier opinions.  The new opinion in Karnoski v. Trump, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100789 (W.D. Wash.), rejects the same arguments emphatically.

Last July, the President tweeted his declaration that transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the U.S. military in any capacity, purporting to reverse a policy on transgender service adopted by the Obama Administration and in effect since July 1, 2016. A month later the White House issued a memorandum setting out the President’s new policy in greater detail, including an implementation date in March 2018 and a permanent postponement of the January 1, 2018, date that had been set by Defense Secretary James Mattis last June for allowing transgender individuals to apply to join the service.  Four lawsuits were filed by different groups of plaintiffs in District Courts in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Seattle, and Riverside (California), challenging the constitutionality of the policy.  All four federal district judges found that the plaintiffs were likely to win on the merits and issued preliminary injunctions intended to have national effect, forbidding implementation of the policy while the litigation proceeded.  None of the district judges were willing to stay their injunctions pending appeal, and the D.C. and 4th Circuit Courts of Appeals also rejected motions to stay, at which point the Justice Department temporarily desisted from further appeals.

Meantime, Trump had ordered Mattis to come up with a written plan for implementation of the August Memorandum, to be submitted to the White House in February. After Mattis submitted his proposal, which departed in some particulars from the August Trump Memorandum, Trump “withdrew” his Memorandum and tweets and authorized Mattis to adopt his plan.  The Justice Department then argued to Judge Pechman that her preliminary injunction should be lifted, because the policy at which it was directed was no longer on the table.

The judge concluded, however, in line with the plaintiff’s arguments, that the new policy was just a slightly modified version of the earlier policy, presenting the same constitutional flaws, so she refused to vacate her injunction. Instead, responding to motions for summary judgment, she ruled that the case should proceed to discovery and a potential hearing on contested fact issues.  The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the 9th Circuit on April 30, and filed a motion with Judge Pechman seeking an expedited ruling on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment so that it could be appealed.  However, the judge declined to issue an expedited ruling, as discovery was supposed to take place and disputed facts might require a hearing to resolve.  Discovery has been delayed by the Justice Department’s insistence that much of the information the plaintiffs seek is covered by Executive Privilege, a dubious claim at best. The Justice Department has filed a motion with the 9th Circuit asking it to stay the preliminary injunction pending appeal, but as of June 15 the 9th Circuit had not responded to the motion.

Judge Pechman’s June 15 opinion said that “each of the arguments raised by Defendants already has been considered and rejected by the Court, and Defendants have done nothing to remedy the constitutional violations that supported entry of a preliminary injunction in the first instance.” She pointed out that she was no more persuaded now than she had been previously by the argument that Mattis’s Implementation Plan was a “new and different” policy.

The Justice Department also argued that “the Ninth Circuit and/or this Court ultimately are highly likely to conclude that significant deference is appropriate,” but Judge Pechman responded, “whether any deference is due remains unresolved.  Defendants bear the burden of providing a ‘genuine’ justification for the Ban.  To withstand judicial scrutiny, that justification must ‘describe actual state purposes, not rationalizations’ and must not be ‘hypothesized or invented post hoc in response to litigation.’”  To date,” she observed, “Defendants have steadfastly refused to put before the Court evidence of any justification that predates this litigation.”

She also pointed out that there are four nationwide preliminary injunctions in effect, not just hers. “As a practical matter,” she wrote, “Defendants face the challenge of convincing each of these courts to lift their injunctions before they may implement the Ban.”

The Justice Department also argued that failure to let the government implement the ban “will irreparably harm the government (and the public) by compelling the military to adhere to a policy it has concluded poses substantial risks.” But, Judge Pechman pointed out, at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Armed Services held after her injunction went into effect, both the Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, had testified that there were no problems with transgender people serving, as thousands are now doing.  Milley testified that he “monitors very closely” the situation and had received “precisely zer”’ reports of problems related to unit cohesion, discipline and morale.  Similarly, Admiral Richardson testified that he had received no negative reports, and that, in his experience, “it’s steady as she goes.”

The judge had already found that staying her injunction would likely cause irreparable injury to the plaintiffs, and that, in fact, “maintaining the injunction pending appeal advances the public’s interest in a strong national defense, as it allows skilled and qualified service members to continue to serve their country.”  She also rejected the Justice Department’s argument that her injunction should just apply to the nine individual transgender plaintiffs in the case, stating, “The Ban, like the Constitution, would apply nationwide.  Accordingly, a nationwide injunction is appropriate.”  And, she wrote, “The status quo shall remain ‘steady as she goes,’ and the preliminary injunction shall remain in full force and effect nationwide.”

The plaintiffs in the Karnoski case are represented by a small army of lawyers affiliated with Lambda Legal, Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago), Outserve-SLDN, and Seattle local counsel Newman & Du Wors LLP. The state of Washington, co-plaintiff in the case, is represented by attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis and the Washington Attorney General’s Office.  Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Legal Voice (formerly known as the Northwest Women’s Law Center) are also participating in this case as amicus on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Federal Court Rejects Trump Administration Ploy and Orders Trial on Trans Military Ban

Posted on: April 14th, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman issued an Order on April 13 in Karnoski v. Trump, one of four pending legal challenges to the Trump Administration’s announced ban on military service by transgender people.  Judge Pechman, who sits in the Western District of Washington (Seattle), rejected the Administration’s argument that existing preliminary injunctions issued by her and three other federal district judges last year against the transgender ban are moot because of President Donald J. Trump’s March 23 Memorandum, which purported to “revoke” his August 25, 2017, Memorandum and July 26, 2017, tweets announcing the ban.  Karnoski v. Trump,  2018 WL 1784464 (W.D. Wash.).

Her skepticism as to this is clear from her description of events: “The 2018 Memorandum confirms [Trump’s] receipt of [Defense Secretary James Mattis’s] Implementation Plan, purports to ‘revoke’ the 2017 Memorandum and ‘any other directive [he] may have made with respect to military service by transgender individuals [an oblique reference to the July tweets],’ and directs the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to ‘exercise their authority to implement any appropriate policies concerning military service by transgender individuals.’”  Thus, the judge rejected the Administration’s contention that Mattis was directed by the President to have a new study made to decide whether to let transgender people serve, and saw it for what it was: an order to propose a plan to implement Trump’s announced ban.

Judge Pechman also rejected the government’s argument that the policy announced in the February 22 Memorandum signed by Secretary James Mattis either deprives all the plaintiffs in the case of “standing” to sue the government, or that the policy it announces is so different from the one previously announced by President Trump that the current lawsuit, specifically aimed at the previously announced policy, is effectively moot as well. The government argued that due to various tweaks and exceptions to the policy announced on March 23, none of the individual plaintiffs in this case were threatened with the kind of individualized harm necessary to have standing, but Pechman concluded that each of the plaintiffs, in facts submitted in response to the March 23 policy, had adequately shown that they still had a personal stake in the outcome of this case.

Instead, and most consequentially, Judge Pechman found that the court should employ the most demanding level of judicial review – strict scrutiny – because transgender people are a “suspect class” for constitutional purposes.  However, Judge Pechman decided that it is premature to grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs, because disputed issues of material fact will require further hearings to resolve.  One is whether the government can prove that excluding transgender people from the military is necessary for the national security of the United States.  Another is whether the purported “study” that produced the February 22 “Report and Recommendations” and Mattis’s Memorandum are entitled to the kind of deference that courts ordinarily extend to military policies.

Judge Pechman’s boldest step is abandoning her prior ruling in this case that the challenged policies are subject only to heightened scrutiny, not strict scrutiny.  Although the Supreme Court has not been consistent or precise in its approach to the level of judicial scrutiny for constitutional challenges to government actions, legal scholars and lower courts have generally described its rulings as divided into three general categories – strict scrutiny, heightened scrutiny, and rationality review.

If a case involves discrimination that uses a “suspect classification,” the approach is strict scrutiny. The policy is presumed unconstitutional and the government has a heavy burden of showing that it is necessary to achieve a compelling government interest, and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest without unnecessarily burdening individual rights.  The Supreme Court has identified race, national origin and religion as suspect classifications, and has not identified any new such classifications in a long time.  Lower federal courts have generally refrained from identifying any new federal suspect classifications, but the California Supreme Court decided in 2008 that sexual orientation is a suspect classification under its state constitution when it struck down the ban on same-sex marriage.

Challenges to economic and social legislation that do not involve “suspect classifications” or “fundamental rights” are generally reviewed under the “rational basis” test. They are not presumed unconstitutional, and the burden is on the plaintiff to show that there was no rational, non-discriminatory reason to support the challenged law.  Courts generally presume that legislatures have rational policy reasons for their actions, but evidence that a law was adopted solely due to animus against a particular group will result in it being declared unconstitutional.

During the last quarter of the 20th century, the Supreme Court began to identify some types of discrimination that fell somewhere between these existing categories, and the third “tier” of judicial review emerged, first in cases involving discrimination because of sex.  The Supreme Court has used a variety of verbal formulations to describe this “heightened scrutiny” standard, but it places the burden on the government to show that such a law actually advances an important government interest.

So far, litigation about transgender rights in the federal courts has progressed to a heightened scrutiny standard in decisions from several circuit courts, including recent controversies about restroom access for transgender high school students, public employee discrimination cases, and lawsuits by transgender prisoners. Ruling on preliminary injunction motions in the transgender military cases last fall, Judge Pechman and the three other federal judges all referred to a heightened scrutiny standard.  Now Judge Pechman blazes a new trail by ruling that discrimination against transgender people should be subject to the same strict scrutiny test used in race discrimination cases.

It is very difficult for the government to win a strict scrutiny case, but its best shot in this litigation depends on the court finding that the policy announced by Mattis is entitled to deference, and this turns on whether it is the product of “expert military judgment,” a phrase that appears in the Mattis Memorandum and the Report.   Judge Pechman has already signaled in her Order her skepticism as to this.  By characterizing this as an “Implementation Plan,” she implies that the question whether Trump actually consulted with generals and military experts back in July before tweeting his absolute ban remains in play, and she pointedly notes the continued refusal by the government to reveal who, if anyone, Trump consulted.

“Defendants to date have failed to identify even one General or military expert he consulted,” she wrote, “despite having been ordered to do so repeatedly. Indeed, the only evidence concerning the lead-up to his Twitter Announcement reveals that military officials were entirely unaware of the Ban, and that the abrupt change in policy was ‘unexpected.’”  Here she quotes Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford’s statement the day after the tweets that “yesterday’s announcement was unexpected,” and news reports that White House and Pentagon officials “were unable to explain the most basic of details about how it would be carried out.”  She also notes that Mattis was given only one day’s notice before the announcement.  “As no other persons have ever been identified by Defendants – despite repeated Court orders to do so – the Court is led to conclude that the Ban was devised by the President, and the President alone.”

Thus, it would be logical to conclude, as she had preliminarily concluded last year when she issued her injunction, that no military expertise was involved and so no deference should be extended to the policy. On the other hand, the new “Report and Recommendations” are now advanced by the government as filling the information gap and supporting deference.  But Judge Pechman remains skeptical.  (There are press reports, which she does not mention, that this document originated at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, rather than from the Defense Department, and it has been subjected to withering criticism by, among others, the American Psychiatric Association.)

Citing their “study,” the government now claims “that the Ban – as set forth in the 2018 Memorandum and the Implementation Plan – is now the product of a deliberative review. In particular, Defendants claim the Ban has been subjected to ‘an exhaustive study’ and is consistent with the recommendations of a ‘Panel of Experts’ convened by Secretary Mattis to study ‘military service by transgender individuals, focusing on military readiness, lethality, and unit cohesion,’ and tasked with ‘conduct[ing] an independent multi-disciplinary review and study of relevant data and information pertaining to transgender Service members.’  Defendants claim that the Panel was comprised of senior military leaders who received ‘support from medical and personnel experts from across the [DoD] and [DHS],’ and considered ‘input from transgender Service members, commanders of transgender Service members, military medical professionals, and civilian medical professions with experience in the care and treatment of individuals with gender dysphoria.’  The Defendants also claim that the Report was ‘informed by the [DoD]’s own data obtained since the new policy began to take effect last year.’”

But, having “carefully considered the Implementation Plan,” wrote Pechman, “the Court concludes that whether the Ban is entitled to deference raises an unresolved question of fact. The Implementation Plan was not disclosed until March 23, 2018.  As Defendants’ claims and evidence regarding their justifications for the Ban were presented to the Court only recently, Plaintiffs and [The State of Washington, which has intervened as a co-plaintiff] have not yet had an opportunity to test or respond to these claims.  On the present record, the Court cannot determine whether the DoD’s deliberate process – including the timing and thoroughness of its study and the soundness of the medical and other evidence it relied upon – is of the type to which Courts typically should defer.”

In other words, Pechman suspects that this purported “study” is a political document, produced for litigation purposes, and she is undoubtedly aware that its accuracy has been sharply criticized. Furthermore, she wrote, “The Court notes that, even in the event it were to conclude that deference is owed, it would not be rendered powerless to address Plaintiffs’ and Washington’s constitutional claims, as Defendants seem to suggest.”  And, she noted pointedly, the Defendants’ “claimed justifications for the Ban – to promote ‘military lethality and readiness’ and avoid ‘disrupt[ing] unit cohesion, or tax[ing] military resources’ – are strikingly similar to justifications offered in the past to support the military’s exclusion and segregation of African American service members, its ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, and its policy preventing women from serving in combat roles.”  In short, Pechman will not be bamboozled by a replay of past discriminatory policies, all of which have been abandoned because they were based mainly on prejudice and stereotyping.

Thus, although the judge denied for now the Plaintiffs’ motions for summary judgment, it was because factual controversies must be resolved before the court can make a final ruling on the merits.

The Defendants won only one tiny victory in this ruling: a concession that the court lacks jurisdiction to impose injunctive relief against President Trump in his official capacity. However, even that was just a partial victory for Defendants, as Judge Pechman rejected the suggestion that the court lacks jurisdiction to issue a declaratory judgment against the President.  “The Court is aware of no case holding that the President is immune from declaratory relief – rather, the Supreme Court has explicitly affirmed the entry of such relief,” citing several cases as examples.  “The Court concludes that, not only does it have jurisdiction to issue declaratory relief against the President, but that this case presents a ‘most appropriate instance’ for such relief,” she continued, taking note of Trump’s original Twitter announcement, and that two of the operative Memoranda at issue in the case were signed by Trump.  If, as Judge Pechman suspects, the Ban was devised in the first instance by Trump, and by Trump alone, a declaratory judgment that his action violated the Constitution would be entirely appropriate.

Plaintiffs are represented by a team of attorneys from Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN, with pro bono assistance from the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Newman Du Wors LLP.

(Post script):

Trump Administration Issues New Transgender Military Policy, Attempting To Sidetrack Lawsuits

Posted on: March 26th, 2018 by Art Leonard No Comments

In a move intended to evade existing preliminary injunctions while reaffirming in its essential elements President Trump’s Twitter announcement from last July categorically prohibiting military service by transgender individuals, the Administration issued three new documents on Friday afternoon, March 23, the date that the President had designated in an August 2017 Memorandum for his announced policy to take effect.  A new Presidential Memorandum “revoked” Trump’s August Memo and authorized the Defense and Homeland Security Secretaries to “implement any appropriate policies concerning military service by transgender individuals.”  At the same time, Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys filed with the federal court in Seattle copies of Defense Secretary James Mattis’s Memorandum to the President and a Department of Defense (DOJ) working group’s “Report and Recommendations” that had been submitted to the White House on February 23, in which Mattis recommended a version of Trump’s transgender ban that would effectively preclude military service for many, perhaps most, transgender applicants and some of those already serving, although the number affected was not immediately clear.

 

Mattis’s recommendation drew a distinction between transgender status and the “medical condition” of gender dysphoria, as defined in the psychiatric diagnostic manual (DSM) generally cited as authoritative in litigation.  Mattis is willing to let transgender people enlist unless they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which the Report characterizes, based heavily on subjective assertions rather than any evidence, as a condition presenting undue risks in a military environment.  Transgender people can enlist if they do not desire to transition and are willing to conform to all military requirements consistent with their biological sex as designated at birth.  Similarly, transgender people currently serving who have not been diagnosed with gender dysphoria can serve on the same basis: that they comply with all requirements for service members of their biological sex.  However, people with a gender dysphoria diagnosis are largely excluded from enlistment or retention, with some individual exceptions, although those currently serving who were diagnosed after the Obama Administration lifted the transgender ban on June 30, 2016, are “exempted” from these exclusions and may serve while transitioning and after transitioning consistent with their gender identity.  (This is pragmatically justified by the investment the military has made in their training, and is conditioned on their meeting all military performance requirement for those in their desired gender presentation.)  Under the recommended policy, Defense Department transition-related health coverage will continue to be available for this “grandfathered” group, but for no others.

 

The March 23 document release took place just days before attorneys from Lambda Legal and the DOJ were scheduled to appear on March 27 in U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman’s Seattle federal courtroom to present arguments on Lambda’s motion for summary judgment in Karnoski v. Trump, one of the four pending legal challenges to the policy. Lambda’s motion, filed in January, was aimed at Trump’s July tweet and August Memorandum, although it anticipated that the Administration would attempt to come up with some sort of documents to fill the fatal gap identified by four federal district judges when they issued preliminary injunctions last fall: Trump’s unilateral actions were not based on any sort of “expert military judgment,” but rather on his short-term political need to win sufficient Republican votes in the House to pass a then-pending Defense Department spending measure.

 

Based on the obvious conclusion that Trump’s policy was not based on “expert military judgment,” the courts refused to accord it the usual deference that federal courts accord to military regulations and rules when they are challenged in court. Indeed, the only in-depth military study on the subject was that carried out over a period of years by the Obama Administration before it lifted the transgender service ban formally on June 30, 2016, while delaying implementation of new accession standards for transgender enlistees for a year. (Mattis later extended that deadline an additional six months to January 1, 2018.)  With no factual backup, Trump’s across-the-board ban was highly vulnerable to constitutional challenge in light of recent federal court rulings that gender identity discrimination is a form of sex discrimination.  Policies that discriminate because of sex are treated by courts as presumptively unconstitutional, putting the government to the burden of showing that they substantially advance an important government interest, and demanding “exceedingly persuasive” proof.  The “Report and Recommendations” filed in Judge Pechman’s court were clearly devised to attempt to fill that evidentiary gap, despite their disclaimer that the group assembled to study the issues and report their recommendations to Mattis and the President were tasked with an objective policy review.

 

The White House document dump ignited a host of questions. There was no clarity about when the “new” policies recommended by Mattis were intended to go into effect (their implementation would require rewriting and formal adoption in the form of regulations), and there were many questions about how transgender people currently serving would be affected.  Defense Department spokespersons said that the Pentagon would abide by federal law, which at present consists of the preliminary injunctions against the policies announced by Trump last summer, which were supposed to go into effect on March 23, 2018, if they had not been blocked by the courts.

 

Since the preliminary injunctions were all aimed at last summer’s tweets and August Memorandum, were they rendered moot by Trump’s revocation of those policy announcements? Or would the courts see the proposed new policy as essentially a continuation of what Trump had initiated, and thus covered by the preliminary injunctions?  The district judges had all denied requests by the government to stay these injunctions, and two courts of appeals had refused to stay those issued by the judges in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., leading DOJ to desist from seeking a stay of the Seattle and Riverside, California, injunctions.  Complying with those injunctions, the Pentagon allowed transgender people to begin applying to enlist in January, and announced that at least one transgender applicant had completed the enlistment process by February.  Arguably, the preliminary injunctions would apply to any policy of excluding transgender people from military service pending a final resolution of these cases, giving them a broad reading consistent with their analysis of the underlying issues.

 

In a signal of what was coming, DOJ attorneys stoutly combatted the plaintiffs’ demand in the Seattle case for disclosure of the identity of “generals and military experts” with whom Trump claimed in his July tweets to have consulted before announcing his categorical ban, arguing that after Mattis made his recommendation in February, DOJ would not be defending the policy announced in the summer but rather whatever new policy the President decided to announce, relying upon Mattis’ “expert military judgment” and whatever documentation was provided to support it. That led to a series of confrontations over the discovery demand, producing two written opinions by Judge Pechman ordering DOJ to come up with the requested information, and at last provoking a questionable claim of Executive Privilege protecting the identity of those consulted by Trump.  This waited to be resolved at the March 27 hearing as well.

 

The Administration’s strategic moves on March 23 appeared intended to change the field of battle in the pending lawsuits. When they were originally filed, they had a big fat target in Trump’s unilateral, unsupported actions.  By revoking his August Memorandum and “any other directive I may have made” (that is, the tweets from July), Trump sought to remove that target and replace it with a new, possibly more defensible one: a policy recommended and eventually adopted as “appropriate” by Mattis based on his “expert military judgment” in response to the recommendation of his study.  Clearly, the Administration was aiming to be able to rely on judicial deference to avoid having to defend the newly-announced policy on its constitutional merits.

 

The big lingering question is whether the courts will let them get away with this. The policy itself suffers from many of the same constitutional flaws as the one it replaces, but the “Report and Recommendations” – cobbled together in heavy reliance on the work of dedicated opponents to transgender military service – has at least the veneer and trappings of a serious policy review.  The plaintiffs in the existing lawsuit will now need to discredit it in the eyes of the courts, painting it as the litigation advocacy document that it obviously is.

 

Mark Joseph Stern, in a detailed dissection published in “Slate ” shortly after the document release, credited Administration sources with revealing that the process of producing the report had been taken over by Vice President Pence and Heritage Foundation personnel who have been producing articles opposing transgender rights in a variety of contexts. According to Stern’s report, Mattis was opposed to reinstating the transgender ban, but was overruled by the White House and is reacting as a soldier to the dictates of his Commander in Chief, unwilling to spend political capital on this issue.  Tellingly, the Report itself does not provide the names of any of those responsible for its actual composition, setting up a new discovery confrontation between the plaintiffs and DOJ.

 

Some are predicting that the new policy will never go into effect. If the courts refuse to be bamboozled by the façade of reasoned policy-making now presented by the Administration, those predictions may be correct.

Ten Federal Judges Vote “No” on Trump Transgender Military Ban

Posted on: December 23rd, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

 

President Donald Trump’s July 26 tweet announcing that “the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” as amplified by an August 25 Memorandum, has encountered unanimous resistance from ten federal judges who have had an opportunity to vote on it by Christmas. Nine of the ten were appointed by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  One, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis in Baltimore (District of Maryland), was appointed by George H. W. Bush.  As of December 22, the Trump policies had provoked four nationwide preliminary injunctions, and two federal circuit courts of appeals had refuse “emergency” motions by the government to stay the injunctions in connection with a January 1 date for allowing transgender individuals to enlist.

The most recent relevant opinions are Jane Doe 1 v. Trump, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26477 (D.C. Cir., Dec. 22, 2017); Stockman v. Trump, Case No. EDCV 17-1799 JGB (KKx) (C.D. Cal., Dec. 22, 2017); Stone v. Trump, No. 17-2398 (4th Cir., Dec. 21, 2017); and Karnoski v. Trump, 2017 WL 6311305, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167232 (W.D. Wash., Dec. 11, 2017).  All the major national LGBT groups are involved in at least one of these cases, and several of the nation’s major law firms are participating as cooperating attorneys.

Trump’s August 25 Memorandum set out three policies: a requirement that all transgender personnel be discharged, a ban on allowing transgender individuals to enter the military, and a ban on use of Defense Department or Homeland Security Department funds to pay for sex reassignment procedures for military members. The Memorandum assigned the Defense Department the task of figuring out how to implement these policies, and to report back in writing to the president in February, and meanwhile nobody would be discharged or denied medical treatment.  But the Memorandum specified that the existing ban on enlistments would remain in effect indefinitely, contrary to a Defense Department announcement in June that it would be lifted on January 1, 2018.

The four lawsuits were filed in different federal district courts shortly after the policy was announced, with complaints alleging a violation of Equal Protection and a variety of other claims, but all seeking preliminary injunctions to stop the Trump policies from going into effect while the cases are litigated. They all specifically asked that the Pentagon adhere to the previously announced date of January 1, 2018, to lift the ban on transgender people enlisting.  The Justice Department moved to dismiss all four cases, and vigorously opposed the motions for preliminary injunctions, which if granted would block the policies announced in the President’s August 25 Memorandum from going into effect while the cases are being litigated and would requirement implementation of the January 1 date for allowing transgender people to enlist.

As of December 22, when U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal, sitting in Riverside (Central District of California), issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, all four district judges had issued such injunctions, beginning with D.C. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on October 30, Judge Garbis in Maryland on November 21, and Judge District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in Seattle (Western District of Washington) on December 11.  The subsequent opinions all cited to and quoted from Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion, none stating any disagreement with her analysis.  On December 21, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stay Judge Garbis’s injunction, and on December 22, the D.C. Circuit refused to stay Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s injunction.  As of December 22, DOJ had appealed Judge Pechman’s ruling to the 9th Circuit, and a similar appeal was likely to be filed from Judge Bernal’s ruling, but it appeared unlikely that an “emergency” stay of either of these preliminary injunctions would be ordered, or would necessarily have any effect, since the nationwide preliminary injunctions issued by Judges Garbis and Kollar-Kotelly are in effect… unless DOJ can find a U.S. Supreme Court Justice who is willing to issue a stay.

All four district judges rejected the Justice Department’s argument that the cases should be dismissed because no actions had actually yet been taken to implement Trump’s announced policies, which were being “studied” by the Defense Department under an “Interim Guidance” issued by Defense Secretary James Mattis in September. All four judges credited the plaintiffs’ arguments that the announcement of the policies and the instruction to the Defense Department to devise a method of implementation had already thrown into turmoil and uncertainty the lives of presently serving transgender individuals as well as transgender people who were anticipating signing up for military service beginning January 1, including transgender students in the nation’s military academies anticipating joining the active forces upon graduation, and they had also disrupted plans for sex reassignment surgery for several of the plaintiffs.  While Judge Kollar-Kotelly found that none of the plaintiffs in the case before her had individual standing to contest the surgery restriction, so she granted the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss that part of the complaint in the case before her, the three other judges all found that some of the plaintiffs in their cases were directly affected by the surgery ban and denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss that part of their cases.  Ultimately, all four cases are proceeding on an Equal Protection theory, with the judges finding that the plaintiffs had standing to bring these constitutional challenges, which were ripe for consideration on the merits.

As to the preliminary injunction motions, all four judges agreed that the high standards for enjoining the implementation of government policies were easily met in these cases. They all agreed that policies treating people adversely because of their gender identity should be reviewed by the same standard as policies that discriminate because of sex, which is called “intermediate scrutiny.”  Under this standard, the government bears the burden of showing that it has a justification for the policy that is “exceedingly persuasive,” “genuine,” “not hypothesized,” and “not invented post hoc in response to litigation,” and “must not rely on overbroad generalizations,” wrote Judge Bernal in his December 22 opinion, picking up quotes from prior cases.

“Defendants’ justifications do not pass muster,” Bernal wrote.  “Their reliance on cost is unavailing, as precedent shows the ease of cost and administration do not survive intermediate scrutiny even if it is significant.  Moreover, all the evidence in the record suggests the ban’s cost savings to the government is miniscule.  Furthermore, Defendants’ unsupported allegation that allowing transgender individuals to be in the military would adversely affect unit cohesion is similarly unsupported by the proffered evidence.  These justifications fall far short of exceedingly persuasive.”  Bernal concluded, as had the other three district judges, that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their Equal Protection claim, so it was unnecessary to analyze the other constitutional theories they offered.

He also rejected DOJ’s argument that the court should follow the normal practice of according “a highly deferential level of review” to executive branch decisions about military policy. Quoting a Supreme Court ruling from 1981, which such that such deferential review is most appropriate when the “military acts with measure, and not ‘unthinkingly or reflexively,’”  he observed, “Here, the only serious study and evaluation concerning the effect of transgender people in the armed forces led the military leaders to resoundingly conclude there was no justification for the ban.”  He agreed with Judge Kollar-Kotelly that “the reasons offered for categorically excluding transgender individuals were not supported and were in fact contradicted by the only military judgment available at the time.”

Bernal also easily concluded that blocking implementation of the policy and ending the enlistment ban on January 1 were necessary to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs.  This was basically a determination that allowing the Trump policies to go into effect would cause injuries to transgender individuals that could not be completely remedied by monetary damages awarded after the fact.  The Justice Department argued that “separation from the military would not constitute irreparable harm because it is within the Court’s equitable powers to remedy the injury,” but Bernal countered, “These arguments fail to address the negative stigma the ban forces upon Plaintiffs,” including the “damaging public message that transgender people are not fit to serve in the military.  There is nothing any court can do to remedy a government-sent message that some citizens are not worthy of the military uniform simply because of their gender.  A few strokes of the legal quill may easily alter the law, but the stigma of being seen as less-than is not so easily erased.”  Furthermore, federal courts have frequently held that “deprivation of constitutional rights unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”

As to the “balance of equities” and “public interest” factors that courts are supposed to weigh in deciding whether to enjoin government action, Bernal found that these weighed in favor of granting the injunction. Invoking “national defense” and “unit cohesion” were not persuasive in light of the extended study by the Defense Department that led to its decision in June 2016 to end the ban and to set in motion a change in recruitment polices to take place July 1, 2017 (which was extended by Secretary Mattis to January 1, 2018).

 

Judge Bernal quoted from Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion: “There is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effect on the military at all. In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects.”  Judge Bernal saw no reason to depart from the analysis by Judges Garbis and Kollar-Kotelly in their decisions to issue preliminary injunctions.

Judge Bernal issued a two-part order. The first part enjoins the defendants “from categorically excluding individuals … from military service on the basis that they are transgender.” The second part provides that “no current service member … may be separated, denied reenlistment, demoted, denied promotion, denied medically necessary treatment on a timely basis, or otherwise subjected to adverse treatment or differential terms of service on the basis that they are transgender.”

The Justice Department sought to have the preliminary injunctions stayed, but so far the district judges have not been receptive, so DOJ took the next step of filing appeals in the D.C., 4th and 9th Circuits, and, claiming an “emergency” as January 1 drew near, sought particularly to stay the part of the injunctions that would require lifting the enlistment ban as of that date.

On December 21, a 4th Circuit three-judge panel rejected the motion for stay without comment. The next day, however, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit issued an opinion explaining its refusal to grant the requested stay.  Wrote the D.C. panel, “Appellants have not shown a strong likelihood that they will succeed on the merits of their challenge to the district court’s order.  As the district court explained, ‘the sheer breadth of the exclusion ordered by the [Memorandum], the unusual’ and abrupt ‘circumstances surround the President’s announcement of [the exclusion], the fact that the reasons given for [it] do not appear to be supported by any facts, and the recent rejection of those reasons by the military itself,’ taken together, ‘strongly suggest that Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claim is meritorious.’”

The court noted in particular the adverse effect that staying the injunction would have on transgender individuals who have been attending the service academies and anticipating graduating and being accepted into the active service as officers. Indeed, the court suggested, federal law actually treats students in the service academies as members of the military, so letting the discharge policy go into effect posed an immediate threat to them.

In seeking “emergency” relief, DOJ contended that the Defense Department was not ready to being enlisting transgender people. In an order that Judge Kollar-Kotelly had issued on December 11, denying an emergency stay motion, she pointed out that DOJ was relying on “sweeping and conclusory statements” without “explaining what precisely needs to be completed by January 1, 2018, in order for Appellants to be prepared to begin transgender accessions.”

Totally undermining this emergency motion was the Defense Department’s own action. “With respect to implementation of transgender accession into the military,” wrote the D.C. panel, “Appellants did not even inform this court of a Defense Department memorandum issued December 8, 2017, that provides detailed directions and guidance governing ‘processing transgender applicants for military service,’ directions that the Secretary of Defense’s Department commanded ‘shall remain in effect until expressly revoked.’  That open-ended directive documenting concrete plans already in place to govern accession was issued before the district court ruled on the motion for a stay pending appeal.”  Thus, the government is tripping over itself in the urgency of DOJ to satisfy the President’s demand that his whims be obeyed.  And the court was totally unconvinced by DOJ’s argument that, in the absence of the preliminary injunction, Mattis had any discretion to alter the terms set out in Trump’s Memorandum.

The court noted that “the enjoined accession ban would directly impair and injure the ongoing educational and professional plans of transgender individuals and would deprive the military of skilled and talented troops,” so “allowing it to take effect would be counter to the public interest.”

“Finally,” wrote the court, “in the balancing of equities, it must be remembered that all Plaintiffs seek during this litigation is to serve their Nation with honor and dignity, volunteering to face extreme hardships, to endure lengthy deployments and separation from family and friends, and to willingly make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives if necessary to protect the Nation, the people of the United States, and the Constitution against all who would attack them.”

In addition to denying the stay, the D.C. panel set out an expedited calendar for addressing DOJ’s appeal of the District Court’s decision to issue the injunction, directing that oral argument be scheduled for January 27, 2018. Furthermore, apparently reacting to the maze of unfamiliar acronyms strewn through the papers filed with the court, making them difficult for the judges to process efficiently, “the parties are urged to limit the use of abbreviations, including acronyms.  While acronyms may be used for entities and statues with widely recognized initials, briefs should not contain acronyms that are not widely known.

Perhaps federal judges are too polite to say so, but the clear import of their opinions in this litigation is that President Trump lied in his original tweet when he said that his decision was made “after consultation with my Generals and military experts.” To date, neither the president nor anybody speaking for him has actually identified any “military experts” or “Generals” who were consulted before the president decided to take this action.  The Defense Department, confronted with the allegations in the complaints about the extended studies that preceded the June 2016 policy announcement by Secretary Carter, has not cited any studies to counter them.  Secretary Mattis, who was on vacation when the president issued his tweet, was informed that it was happening the night before, according to press reports, but is not said to have been consulted about whether this policy change should be made.  Thus, the reference in the court opinions to the lack of “facts” backing up this policy, and the unanimous agreement that the usual judicial deference to military expertise is inappropriate in these cases.

Two Federal Judges Deal Setbacks to Trump’s Transgender Military Ban

Posted on: December 11th, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

Federal district judges on opposite coasts dealt setbacks to President Donald J. Trump’s anti-transgender military policy on December 11.  U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court in Washington, D.C., rejected a motion by the Justice Department in Doe v. Trump to stay her preliminary injunction that requires the Defense Department to allow transgender people to apply to join the service beginning January 1, 2018.  And U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman refused to dismiss the complaint in Karnoski v. Trump, a lawsuit challenging the anti-transgender service ban, while granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against implementation of the policy.  Also on December 11, U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal in Los Angeles heard arguments in support of a motion for preliminary injunction in Stockman v. Trump, a fourth lawsuit challenging the ban.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s decision was predictable, given her October 30 ruling granting the preliminary injunction and a more recent ruling “clarifying,” at the request of the Justice Department, that she really intended to require the Defense Department to allow transgender individuals to begin enlisting on January 1.  The Justice Department incredibly claimed that this January 1 deadline created an emergency situation, but their argument was significantly undercut by reports last week that the Pentagon had, in response to the judge’s earlier Order, put into motion the steps necessary to comply.

In support of its motion for a stay, DOJ presented a “declaration” from Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy Lernes J. Hebert, who claimed that implementing the court’s order on January 1 would “impose extraordinary burdens on the Department and the military services” and that “notwithstanding the implementation efforts made to date, the Department still would not be adequately and properly prepared to begin processing transgender applicants for military service by January 1, 2018.”

The judge found this unconvincing, pointing out that DoD has had almost a year and a half to prepare for this eventuality, dating back to former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s June 2016 Directive pointing to a July 1, 2016, implementation date for allowing transgender people to enlist, which was extended for six months by Secretary James Mattis at the end of June 2017.  “Moreover,” she wrote, “the Court issued the preliminary injunction in this case approximately six weeks ago, and since then Defendants have been on notice that they would be required to implement the previously established policy of beginning to accept transgender individuals on January 1, 2018.  In other words, with only a brief hiatus, Defendants have had the opportunity to prepare for the accession of transgender individuals into the military for nearly one and a half years.”

In opposition to the motion, the plaintiffs had submitted a declaration by Dr. George Richard Brown, who has trained “approximately 250 medical personnel working in Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) throughout the military” in anticipation of implementing the accessions policy, and a declaration by former Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Jr., who stated that “the Services had already completed almost all of the necessary preparation for lifting the accession ban” as long as a year ago.

As to the so-called emergency nature of this motion, Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote, “As a final point, the Court notes that Defendants’ portrayal of their situation as an emergency is belied by their litigation tactics. The Court issued its preliminary injunction requiring Defendants to comply with the January 1, 2018 deadline on October 30, 2017.  Defendants did not file an appeal of that decision until November 21, 2017, and did not file the current motion for a stay of that deadline until December 6, 2017, requesting a decision by noon today, December 11, 2017.  There is also no indication that Defendants have sought any sort of expedited review of their appeal, the first deadlines in which are not until January, 2018.  If complying with the military’s previously established January 1, 2018 deadline to begin accession was as unmanageable as Defendants now suggest, one would have expected Defendants to act with more alacrity.”

However, the judge’s denial of the stay may prove more symbolic than effective in terms of allowing transgender people to actually enlist, since she noted that the policy that will go into effect on January 1 presents significant barriers to enlistment on medical grounds.  The Pentagon is planning to require that transgender applicants show, generally speaking, that for at least 18 months prior to their applications they have been “stable” with regard to their gender identity.  Nobody can enlist, for example, if they have undergone gender confirmation surgery within the past 18 months, since the medical standard will require that they have been “stable” for at least 18 months after the last surgical treatment.  Similarly, anybody first diagnosed as having gender dysphoria within the previous 18 months cannot enlist, since they will have to have certified by a licensed medical provider that they have been “stable without clinically significant distress or impairment” for at least 18 months since their diagnosis.  And those under treatment, for example taking hormone therapy, will have to show they have been stable for at least 18 months since commencing therapy.  In addition, of course, applicants will have to meet all medical requirements applicable to everybody regardless of gender identity, and it is well-known that a substantial percentage of potential enlistees are disqualified on physical/medical grounds.

As to the government’s “extraordinary burden” argument, Judge Kollar-Kotelly noted, “There is no evidence in the record that would suggest that the number of transgender individuals who might seek to accede on January 1, 2018, would be overwhelmingly large.  To the contrary, although the Court understands that there may be some dispute as to the amount of transgender individuals in the general population and in the military, the record thus far suggests that the number is fairly small.”

Plaintiffs in Doe v. Trump are represented by National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD.

The plaintiffs in Karnoski v. Trump, pending in the district court in Seattle, are represented by Lambda Legal and Outserve/SLDN.  They alleged four theories for challenging the policy: equal protection, substantive due process (deprivation of liberty), procedural due process, and freedom of speech.  Judge Pechman found that three out of these four theories were sufficiently supported by the complaint to deny the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case, although she granted the motion as to the procedural due process claim.  She efficiently disposed of various procedural objections to the lawsuit, finding that all of the plaintiffs have standing to proceed, including the organizational plaintiffs and the State of Washington, whose motion to intervene as a plaintiff had previously been granted, and that the dispute is ripe for judicial resolution because of the imminent implementation of Trump’s policy directives.

As had two district judges before her, Judge Pechman cut and pasted screen captures of the president’s July 26 tweet announcing the policy into her opinion, and used particularly cutting language to reject DOJ’s argument that the president’s policy decision was entitled to the kind of judicial deference usually accorded to military policy decisions. “Defendants rely on Rostker v. Goldberg (1981). In Rostker, the Supreme Court considered whether the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA), which compelled draft registration for men only, was unconstitutional.  Finding that the MSSA was enacted after extensive review of legislative testimony, floor debates, and committee reports, the Supreme Court held that Congress was entitled to deference when, in ‘exercising the congressional authority to raise and support armies and make rules for their governance,’ it does not act ‘unthinkingly’ or ‘reflexively and not for any considered reason.’  In contrast, the prohibition on military service by transgender individuals was announced by President Trump on Twitter, abruptly and without any evidence of considered reason or deliberation.  The policy is therefore not entitled to Rostker deference.  Because Defendants have failed to demonstrate that the policy prohibiting transgender individuals from serving openly is substantially related to important government interests, it does not survive intermediate scrutiny.”  In a footnote, the judge added, “For the same reasons, the policy is also unlikely to survive rational basis review.”

The court concluded that all the tests for preliminary injunctive relief established by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (Washington State is within the 9th Circuit) had easily been satisfied.  Her Order “enjoins Defendants and their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and any other person or entity subject to their control or acting directly or indirectly in concert or participation with Defendants from taking any action relative to transgender individuals that is inconsistent with the status quo that existed prior to President Trump’s July 26, 2017 announcement.  This Preliminary Injunction shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect pending resolution of this action on the merits or further order of this Court.”

Thus, Judge Pechman issued the third preliminary injunction against Trump’s anti-transgender policy, after those issued by Judge Kollar-Kotelly on October 30 and U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis in Stone v. Trump on November 21 in the District Court in Maryland. All three preliminary injunctions block the discharge of transgender service members while the case is pending and require the Pentagon to allow transgender people to begin enlisting on January 1.  The injunctions by Judge Garbis and Judge Pechman also block the administration from refusing to fund transition-related health care (including surgery).  In the face of this united front from the three judges, it seems likely that Judge Bernal will eventually issue a similar order, so attention will turn to the Courts of Appeals to which DOJ has appealed the first ruling and presumably will soon appeal the others.

A Second US District Judge Blocks Trump’s Ban on Transgender Military Service

Posted on: November 21st, 2017 by Art Leonard No Comments

A second federal district judge has issued a preliminary injunction against implementation of President Donald Trump’s August 25 Memorandum implementing his July 26 tweet announcing a ban on all military service by transgender individuals. Stone v. Trump, Civil Action No. MJG-17-2459 (D. Md.). The November 21 action by District Judge Marvin J. Garbis of the District of Maryland came just three weeks after a federal district judge in the District of Columbia, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, had issued a preliminary injunction against two directives in Trump’s three-directive memo.  (See Doe v. Trump, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178892, 2017 WL 4873042 (D.D.C. Oct. 30, 2017).  Judge Garbis took the next step, enjoining implementation of all three directives, finding that the plaintiff group represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in this case includes at least two individuals who had standing to challenge the directive against the military providing sex reassignment procedures for military personnel.

In his August 25 Memorandum, Trump directed that all transgender service members be discharged, beginning no later than March 23, 2018, and that the existing ban on accession of transgender members, scheduled to end on January 1, 2018, be extended indefinitely. His third directive provided that after March 23 the Defense Department cease providing sex reassignment surgery for transgender personnel, with a possible individual exception in cases where procedures were already under way and failure to complete them would endanger the health of the individual.  (Of course, those individuals, being identified as transgender, would be subject to discharge under the first directive in any event.)

On September 24, Secretary of Defense James Mattis issued a memorandum establishing an “interim policy,” announcing that he would meet the President’s deadline of submitting a “plan to implement the policy and directives in the Presidential Memorandum” by February 21, but until then, there would be no immediate effect on individual service members.

The ACLU filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland on August 8. Three other lawsuits challenging the transgender ban are pending.  One filed on August 9 in the District of Columbia District Court has already resulted in the preliminary injunction issued by Judge Kollar-Kotelly.  The others are pending in the District Courts in Seattle and Los Angeles, where the plaintiffs are also seeking preliminary injunctions.

Judge Garbis leaned heavily on Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s October 30 ruling for much of his analysis, agreeing with her that heightened scrutiny applies to the plaintiffs’ equal protection claim and that the usual judicial deference to military policy decisions by the Executive Branch was not appropriate in this case. The judge took particular note of an amicus brief filed by retired military officers and former national security officials, who had written that “this is not a case where deference is warranted, in light of the absence of any considered military policymaking process, and the sharp departure from decades of precedent on the approach of the U.S. military to major personnel policy changes.”

Continued Garbis, “President Trump’s tweets did not emerge from a policy review, nor did the Presidential Memorandum identify any policymaking process or evidence demonstrating that the revocation of transgender rights was necessary for any legitimate national interest. Based on the circumstances surrounding the President’s announcement and the departure from normal procedure, the Court agrees with the D.C. Court that there is sufficient support for Plaintiffs’ claims that ‘the decision to exclude transgender individuals was not driven by genuine concerns regarding military efficacy.’”

Indeed, Garbis concluded that heightened scrutiny was not even necessary to rule for the Plaintiffs on this motion. “The lack of any justification for the abrupt policy change, combined with the discriminatory impact to a group of our military service members who have served our country capably and honorably, cannot possibly constitute a legitimate governmental interest,” he wrote, so it would fail the minimally demanding rationality test applied to all government policies.

Garbis closely followed the D.C. Court’s analysis of the grounds for jurisdiction in this case, rejecting the government’s argument that nobody had been harmed yet so nobody had standing to bring the case, and that it was not yet ripe for judicial resolution when Mattis had not yet made his implementation recommendations to the President. The adoption of a policy that violates equal protection is deemed a harm even before it is implemented, and the stigmatic harm of the government officially deeming all transgender people as unfit to serve the country is immediate.  The court found that Trump’s directive that Mattis study how to implement the president’s orders was not, in effect, a mandate to recommend exceptions or abandonment of the ban, thus undercutting the government’s argument that it is merely hypothetical or speculative that the ban would go into effect unless enjoined by the courts.

Garbis went further than Kollar-Kotelly to enjoin the sex reassignment directive because the ACLU’s plaintiff group included at least two individuals whose transition procedures have already been disrupted and will be further disrupted if the ban goes into effect. The D.C. Court had accepted the government’s argument that appropriate adjustments had vitiated any negative effect on the plaintiffs in that case who were seeking transition procedures, but Garbis found that the timing of the transition procedures for the plaintiffs before him would be disrupted if the ban goes into effect, so the harm was not merely hypothetical.

The court based the preliminary injunction on its finding that plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their equal protection argument, and did not address the due process argument in that context. However, in rejecting the government’s motion to dismiss the due process claim, Garbis accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that “it is egregiously offensive to actively encourage transgender service members to reveal their status and serve openly, only to use the revelation to destroy those service members’ careers.”

In perhaps the strongest statement in his opinion, Garbis wrote: “An unexpected announcement by the President and Commander in Chief of the United States via Twitter that ‘the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military’ can be considered shocking under the circumstances. According to news reports provided by Plaintiffs, the Secretary of Defense and other military officials were surprised by the announcement.  The announcement also drew swift criticism from retired generals and admirals, senators, and more than 100 Members of Congress.  A capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified tweet of new policy does not trump the methodical and systematic review by military stakeholders qualified to understand the ramifications of policy changes.”

The only setback suffered by the plaintiffs was dismissal, without prejudice, of their claim that the policy violates 10 U.S.C. sec. 1074(a)(1), a statute the entitles active duty and reserve military members to medical care in military treatment facilities. The plaintiffs claimed that the sex reassignment directive exceeded the President’s authority by attempting to override a statute by “denying necessary medical care to a group of service member he happens to disfavor,” and that doing so through a unilateral White House memorandum rather than a regulation adopted pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act was unlawful.  Garbis characterized the plaintiffs’ factual allegations in support of this claim as “conclusory” and thus not sufficient to meet the civil pleading requirement.  However, he wrote, “Perhaps Plaintiffs could assert an adequate and plausible statutory claim,” so he dismissed without prejudice, allowing the plaintiffs to seek permission to file an amendment that “adequately asserts such a claim if they can do so.”  This dismissal does not really affect the substance of the relief granted by the preliminary injunction or sought in the ongoing case, because Judge Garbis granted the preliminary injunction on constitutional grounds against implementation of Trump’s sex reassignment surgery, exactly the part of the Trump memorandum targeted by the statutory claim.

The Justice Department will likely seek to appeal this ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, just as it had announced that it would appeal Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.  By the time an appeal is considered, however, it is likely that preliminary injunctions will also have been issued by the district courts in Seattle and Los Angeles.  Maybe a united front of judicial rejections of the transgender ban will convince Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose department is defending the ban, that it is time to withdraw the August 25 Memorandum and disavow the July 26 tweet.

Since the Administration takes the position that Presidential tweets are official policy statements of the President, a disavowal of the tweets would be necessary to render the policy fully withdrawn, one presumes, although this is unexplored territory. Interestingly, Judge Garbis followed Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s example by including a cut and paste version of the Trump tweet sequence in the background section of his opinion, and specifically identified policy announcement by tweet as a departure from normal procedure that contributes to the constitutional analysis.

Judge Garbis, a Senior U.S. District Judge, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush.