Yale Law School suit alleges Veterans Administration biased against sex assault victims with PTSD

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NEW HAVEN >> The Service Women’s Action Network and Vietnam Veterans of America Wednesday sued the Veterans Administration, claiming its rules discriminate against vets seeking disability benefits for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder tied to military sexual trauma.

The organizations are represented by the Yale Law School’s Legal Services Clinic, which filed the action in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

The suit claims that nearly one in three women is raped during their term of service in the military, while more than half experience unwanted sexual contact.

But it is not only women who are victims, according to the suit. It says that of the 26,000 reports of unwanted sexual contact made in 2011-12, some 52 percent came from men.

“These assaults often result in devastating, long-term psychological injuries, most notably Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sexual violence correlates with PTSD more highly than any other trauma, including combat,” the suit states.

In order to acquire disability benefits, veterans have to prove the disability is service-related.

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The VA, over time, has eased the evidentiary requirement for vets experiencing combat- and fear-related PTSDs, herbicide exposure for Vietnam veterans and for prisoners of war, but not for those suffering from sexual trauma.

The suit says the VA will often reject lay testimony alone in these cases, meaning the victims have to show corroborating evidence.

It said this is difficult because of “systemic under-reporting of in-sevice sexual trauma,” which is further impacted by a Department of Defense policy mandating that reports of military sexual trauma be destroyed after five years, and complaints of sexual harassment after two years.

The VA reported that 20 percent of female veterans and one in 100 male veterans, in seeking health care, report an experience of rape, sexual assault or sexual harassment.

The two groups said even when evidence is submitted, the VA allegedly fails to give it the proper weight.

Faced with a higher evidentiary bar, the suit said the VA denies a significantly higher percentage of military sexual trauma-related PTSD claims than for other claims of mental health disorders.

From 2009 to 2012, it said, other PTSD claims were granted at a higher rate, ranging from 16.5 percent to 29.6 percent.

The suit claims that the VA knows its rules discriminate, but it has refused to change them.

The two organizations submitted a petition for a rule change with the VA in June 2013, but said the VA never responded.

They are asking the court to hold the VA’s “constructive denial” unlawful and compel it to enact the proposed changes “within a reasonable period of time.”

“New regulations are necessary in light of decades of failed, informal attempts at [the] VA to reform its adjudication of military sexual trauma related claims,” the suit states.

A request for comment was submitted to the Veterans Administration.

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