Remarks as Delivered
Thank you so much Louis, and good afternoon. It is an honor to be with you today at this important convening.
On behalf of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the Servicemembers and Veterans Initiative, I would like to wish a happy belated Veterans Day to our servicemembers, both past and present, who sacrifice so much for our nation. You are all inspiring examples of public service and we owe you a deep debt of gratitude.
Today, we are here to celebrate all veterans across the country, including our esteemed veteran colleagues right here at the department. This gathering also has a special focus on diverse veterans, who have served our country despite facing unjust barriers. Indeed, veterans from diverse communities have volunteered to protect this country since its founding, often at disproportionate rates – and even though the country they served has not always provided them with full freedoms or protections.
This is true, for example, of Black Americans, who have served in every conflict since the nation’s founding despite facing profound inequalities and unconscionable deprivations of rights during the era of slavery and beyond. Many consider the first casualty of the Revolutionary War to be that of Crispus Attucks, a Black man shot during the Boston Massacre while protesting British oppression. Today, Black Americans make up nearly 20% of enlisted military members, more than their 13% share of the U.S. population.
Or consider the Japanese-American veterans who chose to serve during World War II, at the same time as our government ran its infamous and shameful Japanese internment camps. One segregated Japanese-American unit, the 442nd Regiment and its 100th Infantry Battalion, became one of the most decorated military units in United States history.
Hispanic and Latino Americans have also made critical contributions to our military dating back to the Civil War, and their representation among active duty personnel has tripled since 1980. Some of these veterans chose to serve despite lacking U.S. citizenship, and in some unfortunate cases were later deported. I am pleased that the Department of Homeland Security has now initiated a program to support non-citizen veterans and assist with naturalization.
As one last example, even while facing significant barriers to serving openly, brave LGBTQ+ servicemembers continue to enlist at rates greater than their share of the U.S. population. Estimates also suggest that transgender Americans serve at twice the rate of the general public. Although our military once again allows LGBTQ+ individuals to serve openly, not that long ago, government policy expressly discriminated against them.
These are but a few examples of the remarkable service of diverse veterans in the face of discrimination. We are grateful to you for your courage.
The Civil Rights Division takes seriously our responsibility to safeguard the rights of our servicemembers and veterans. Under the law, your military service should not lead to lenders foreclosing on your homes. You should not face service-based discrimination at work. You should not face barriers to voting in our federal elections even while stationed away from home. And you should not face discrimination based on disability. The Civil Rights Division works every day to ensure that these rights are protected.
For instance, since 2009, the department has reached settlements under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, otherwise known as SCRA, providing more than $474 million in compensation to over 120,000 servicemembers, and close to a million in civil penalties. The SCRA protects military members and their families in dealing with home foreclosures, vehicle repossessions, leasing agreements, evictions, interest rates on financial obligations and default judgments. The department recently resolved two significant SCRA cases that I will mention briefly now.
On November 2, we resolved an SCRA case against Father & Son Moving & Storage, a storage company in Massachusetts. The company auctioned off the belongings of a United States Air Force Technical Sergeant named Charles Cornacchio while he was deployed, without first obtaining a court order, as required by the SCRA. The auctioned belongings included military gear, mementos from veteran family members, heirloom furniture and irreplaceable personal photographs. Under the consent order, the company will pay the servicemember $60,000 in damages, along with a $5,000 civil penalty to the United States.
Just a few days earlier, on September 29, we resolved a case against American Honda Finance Corporation, which we alleged violated the SCRA by unlawfully penalizing 714 servicemembers who terminated their vehicle leases early due to military orders. The consent order requires the company to pay over $1.5 million to the servicemembers and over a $64,000 civil penalty, as well as to make changes to its policies and provide training to their employees going forward.
The Civil Rights Division also enforces the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, also known as USERRA. This important statute entitles servicemembers to return to their civilian employment after completing their military service with the seniority, status and rate of pay that they would have had if they had remained continuously employed by their civilian employer. USERRA also prohibits discrimination based on present, past and future military service. Since the division began enforcing USERRA in 2004, we have filed over 100 lawsuits and favorably resolved close to 200 complaints through consent decrees or private settlements.
For example, last spring, the department obtained a close to $200,000 settlement under USERRA on behalf of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Rego, a U.S. Army Reservist. Lieutenant Colonel Rego’s civilian employer, Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, laid him off from his civilian job as a pharmacist while he was deployed, in violation of USERRA. And at the end of September, the department filed a lawsuit against Prince George County in Virginia, which we allege violated the law by failing to reemploy Virginia Army National Guard Major Mark Gunn as a police detective when he returned from active duty. Instead, the county demoted Major Gunn to a patrol officer position, causing him to retire early and lose his pension benefits. The matter is currently in litigation and is being jointly prosecuted by the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The Civil Rights Division also enforces the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, also called UOCAVA, which protects the right of our servicemembers and their families to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections when living away from home on military orders. In 2020, the department filed statements of interest in cases in Georgia and Massachusetts to help ensure that military and overseas voters could submit their ballots in time to be counted.
The Civil Rights Division also serves veterans and the military community through our enforcement of more broadly applicable civil rights statutes. For example, in May of this year, we entered into settlements with two community colleges under the Americans with Disabilities Act to remove barriers that impeded students with disabilities, including inaccessible sidewalks and parking, and lack of appropriate signage. Both of these colleges — the Central Texas College of Killeen, Texas, and Tidewater Community College in Virginia — have significant veteran student populations.
And in an earlier case, the department sued the City of Jacksonville, Florida, under the Fair Housing Act for allegedly refusing to permit development of a facility to house chronically homeless veterans. And they did so based on stereotypes about the veterans’ disabilities. Our resolution required the city to provide a $1.5 million grant to build additional supportive housing in the city, pay $400,000 to the nonprofit developer, pay a $25,000 civil penalty, and amend its zoning practices.
The Civil Rights Division also advises the Department of Defense Education Activity also known as the DoDEA, which operates 160 schools in 11 countries and is responsible for educating more than 60,000 military-connected children – on its obligations to comply with civil rights standards, as required under Executive Order 13160. Through this work, the division helps to ensure that children of servicemembers are able to attend schools that are free from discrimination.
I want to take a moment to talk about the Servicemembers and Veterans Initiative, or SVI, which brings all of us together here today, and which embodies the department’s commitment to supporting the military community. The department established this initiative in 2014, to coordinate and expand our efforts to protect servicemembers, veterans and their families. And they do this through outreach, training, policy development and coordination with federal partners, and we are extremely proud of the initiative’s many accomplishments.
And we aren’t the only ones who have noticed their great work. At the end of last year, Congress passed the SVI Act, which legislatively established the initiative within the Civil Rights Division and expanded its mission and responsibilities. I applaud this bipartisan action by Congress to codify and strengthen this important initiative.
I am also proud to announce that in honor of Veterans Day, Attorney General Garland issued a memorandum just last week that reinforces the Justice Department’s commitment to protecting the civil rights of servicemembers, veterans and their families. This memorandum directs SVI to increase targeted outreach to veterans and servicemembers regarding their protections under federal civil rights statutes, and charges them to work closely with the department’s Office for Access to Justice to promote servicemembers’ and veterans’ access to justice in the civil and criminal legal systems.
In closing, I would like to take a moment to recognize the 33,000 veterans who are a part of our Justice Department family. You all know what it means to put service before self. And you have continued your admirable service to this nation by transitioning to a civilian career of fighting for justice and upholding the rule of law. On behalf of the Civil Rights Division, let me assure you that we stand ready every day to protect our servicemembers and veterans so that you, too, can enjoy the rights and freedoms for which you so valiantly fought.
We’re proud to serve alongside you, and we thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to join you today.