Full Fourth Circuit hashes Pentagon ban on HIV-positive enlistees

The full Fourth Circuit heard arguments Monday over the Pentagon's ban on HIV-positive enlistees, months after a three-judge panel including two Trump appointees revived the policy that a Clinton-appointed judge had blocked in 2024. Plaintiffs, including a discharged trans veteran, a barred National Guardsman and an advocacy group, argue the ban ignores that antiretroviral therapy has made HIV manageable with a once-daily pill since 1996.

Judge Harvie Wilkinson worried that ruling for the plaintiffs would draw courts into second-guessing military medical judgments across the board, from diabetes to peanut allergies. Attorney Scott Schoettes countered that the military's blood-donation and medication-burden justifications don't hold up, noting other disqualifying conditions get more deference precisely because they carry a rational basis HIV no longer does.

The government maintains its enlistment standards differ from those governing troops already serving, citing cost and diplomatic concerns abroad. Britain, France and Australia allow enlistees with undetectable viral loads to serve, a fact plaintiffs raised without apparent rebuttal from the Justice Department, which declined to comment.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.