Social justice is a morale buster.
Recent federal court rulings directing the Pentagon to begin recruiting openly transgender citizens, ahead of a department-wide review of the issue, circumvents the military’s authority to set national security policy and hands that role to the judiciary, says one defense think tank.
In the rulings by members of the federal district court of District of Columbia and 4th Circuit Courts of Appeals, requiring the Defense Department to begin trangender recruitment, the Justice Department “has tacitly conceded that federal judges can make military policy and establish medical standards for enlistments,” Elaine Donnelly, president for the conservative, Michigan-based Center for Military Readiness, said Tuesday.
“The federal courts have no authority to make policy regarding the military. The Department of Justice should have protected the constitutional rights of President Donald J. Trump by filing an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court,” immediately after the lower court rulings were issued, Ms. Donnelly said in a statement.
The Justice Department’s failure to call for an emergency appeal suggests department officials do not have an adequate “strategy to fight on principle and win” regarding the White House’s policy to ban all transgender troops from the U.S. military, she added.
Defense Department officials gave the green light in December to allow transgender U.S. citizens to enlist into the armed forces, a move that flies in the face of the White House’s plan to ban all transgender individuals from the U.S. military.
Transgender recruits will be allowed to enlist beginning Jan. 1 but will be subjected to a slew of physical, psychological and medical requirements before being considered for military service, Pentagon spokesman Maj. David Eastburn said Monday.