Vermont student files suit over HIV status

BOSTON — A military college student who says he was removed from his duties for testing positive for HIV is suing state and federal military officials.

The 20-year-old student from Revere, Mass., says in a complaint filed Thursday that he tested positive in October 2020 during his sophomore year at the nation’s oldest private military college, Norwich University in Northfield, Vt.

The student, who is identified in the lawsuit as “John Doe,” says in the complaint filed in federal court in Burlington, Vt., that he was deemed unfit for service and dropped from the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and the Vermont Army National Guard despite being healthy, asymptomatic and on a treatment regimen that renders his viral load undetectable.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the Vermont National Guard, which are among those named in the lawsuit, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group, filed the lawsuit on the student’s behalf.

The suit describes in some detail the circumstances around the dismissal, including that the student was informed he would not be able to get a scholarship or contract through the ROTC program because of his HIV status and that he was no longer allowed to continue his monthly training periods with the state National Guard.

HIV is among a lengthy list of medical conditions that automatically disqualify a person from enlisting, being appointed as a commissioned officer or enrolling as an ROTC scholarship cadet.

The student’s lawyers argue the military’s HIV policies date to the 1980s when little was known about the condition, which if left untreated can lead to AIDS.