Black vet’s lawsuit alleges VA’s own data shows discrimination
A Connecticut resident has filed a federal lawsuit, claiming the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, formerly known as the Veterans Administration, has for decades wrongfully denied disability compensation claims for Black veterans at a higher rate than white veterans based on the agency’s own data.
According to the lawsuit filed by Hamden resident Conley Monk Jr,, the findings reveal that for nearly two decades ending in 2020, Black veterans were denied disability compensation claims at a rate of 39.5 percent while white veterans were denied 24.2 percent of the time. Monk
obtained the data from the VA through a Freedom of Information Act request, the lawsuit stated.
At the same time, claims for white veterans were approved 37.1 percent of the time, while the claims for Black veterans were approved 30.3 percent of the time, creating a “statistically significant disparity,” the lawsuit said.
The 74-year-old Monk is a Black veteran who was awarded several medals while serving in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. Monk fought for benefits for decades because of his discharge status, which he said was a product of untreated Post Traumatic Stress brought on by the conditions of war, the lawsuit said.
“I’m fighting to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other veterans,” Monk said last week during a phone interview. “It shouldn’t have happened to me.”
In a statement, a spokesperson said Denis McDonough, U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs, and the entire agency are aware of the racial disparities and are working to address them. They stopped short, however, of mentioning Monk’s situation or the lawsuit.
“Secretary McDonough has made clear that delivering world-class, timely, equitable care and benefits to all Veterans is our top priority at VA,” VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in an email.
“Throughout history, there have been unacceptable disparities in both VA benefits decisions and military discharge status due to racism, which have wrongly left Black veterans without access to VA care and benefits. We are actively working to right these wrongs, and we will stop at nothing to ensure that all Black veterans get the VA services they have earned and deserve.”
According to the lawsuit, Monk has weathered homelessness and medical conditions, including a stroke with no help from the VA for decades. But during the same period, he fought tirelessly for other veterans, at times using his own experience to talk them out of standoffs with police, he said.
“I was a Vietnam vet, I understood what they were going through,” Monk said.
Monk finally received some benefits in 2015 after the Veterans Legal Services Clinic within the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School took up his cause, leading to a change in his discharge status.
However, Monk still had to sue twice to get retroactive payments for the decades he was denied, according to the group of law students who are representing him in the lawsuit filed last week.
While he is now receiving disability compensation, which recognizes his PSTD and other medical issues from his service, Monk never received other benefits such as low-cost housing loans or tuition for college, which have impacted his ability to build equity in a home or improve his career status, said Adam Henderson, a third-year law student at Yale who is on the team representing him.
“We want them to take action so that another generation of Black veterans aren’t harmed,” Henderson said.
The legal clinic is seeking compensatory damages and attorney’s fees under the Federal Tort Claims Act to make Monk “whole” since he was declined years of financial support even as he suffered from mental health and medical conditions brought on by his service, the lawsuit contends.
In February, Monk filed an administrative complaint with the VA about receiving redress for the harms committed by the agency, including being forced to repeatedly relive “the most traumatic moments of his life” as part of his many applications to obtain benefits. The agency has not responded to that complaint within six months, paving the way for his attorneys to file the lawsuit under the FTCA, which makes the United States liable for the acts of its employees.
Based on his own experiences and others he has helped for decades through his organization, the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, Monk had long suspected that Black veterans were being discriminated against in claims for disability compensation and other VA benefits such as housing, education and health care.
When he was at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina for training, Monk said he routinely experienced racism off the base.
“I couldn’t go to those bathrooms or in those restaurants,” he said. “That was outside of the base, but of course, it rolled over onto the base. We were treated differently.”
Although he had served honorably, Monk wound up in the base prison while stationed in Okinawa after serving in Vietnam because his PSTD wasn’t recognized or treated, the lawsuit said. During his service, he had been awarded a Rifle Marksman Badge, a National Defense Service Medal, a Vietnam Service Medal with one star and a Vietnam Combat Medal. But Monk was told he would remain in prison unless he signed documents agreeing to an “undesirable discharge,” the lawsuit claimed.
He didn’t realize that by signing off on the discharge designation that it would prohibit him from receiving benefits for decades, the lawsuit said. He fought for nearly 45 years before the VA agreed to change his condition of discharge, which made him eligible for disability compensation, the lawsuit contended.
It wasn’t until his veterans council and the Black Veterans Project filed a Freedom of Information Act request in 2021 that Monk’s suspicions about racial disparities within the VA claims process proved accurate, the lawsuit said.
The records received by Monk and the BVP “demonstrate that for decades VA leadership, including VA secretaries, knew or should have known of pervasive, longstanding racial disparities in veterans’ benefits for Black veterans,” the attorneys said in the lawsuit. “VA officials also knew or should have
known that racial bias in the military justice system was affecting the discharge status of Black veterans like Mr. Monk, who initially received an undesirable discharge.”
Although the litigation filed last week is not a class action lawsuit, Monk, Henderson and the legal team want it to have a positive impact on other Black veterans
who have been denied benefits.
“We’re hoping this lawsuit can open up the legal pathway to other Black veterans who have been harmed and had to go through what Mr. Monk went through,” Henderson said. “We’re hoping the VA rectifies the situation so other veterans can get their benefits.”