On National Vietnam War Veterans Day, March 29, a federal judge in Connecticut issued a groundbreaking ruling permitting a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to proceed. The case alleges decades-long racial discrimination in veterans’ benefits dating back to World War II. Filed on behalf of Black veterans, the lawsuit seeks damages for the VA’s failure to address systemic bias since 1945. The decision marks a rare instance of a lawsuit addressing historic discrimination overcoming a motion to dismiss.
Judge Stefan R. Underhill denied the government’s motion to dismiss Monk v. United States, a case brought by Vietnam veteran Conley Monk Jr., the estate of his father—a World War II veteran—and the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress (NVCLR). The lawsuit claims Black veterans have endured a discriminatory benefits system for decades. The court found the allegations of systemic racial discrimination compelling enough to allow the case to advance and rejected a government request to prevent Margarita Devlin, a former VA official, from being deposed.
Monk and NVCLR are represented by the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic, part of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, and the law firm Edelson PC.
