ACLU, women’s rights groups seek details on Pentagon’s review of women in combat

The American Civil Liberties Union and several women’s rights groups are pressing the Pentagon to reveal details about the origins and intent of an ongoing review of the effectiveness of women in combat roles.

The groups, who filed two separate Freedom of Information Act requests last week, contend that neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Pentagon officials have offered a meaningful explanation as to why the review was ordered, how it is being conducted or for what it will be used.

The Pentagon made no public announcement after deciding late last year to undertake the review.

In January, National Public Radio reported that Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, had issued a memorandum in December calling for an evaluation of “operational effectiveness of ground combat units 10 years after the Department lifted all remaining restrictions on women serving in combat roles.”

On Aug. 17, the Women in the Service Coalition and journalist Hope Hodge Seck filed a FOIA request seeking Defense Department records regarding the origins of and protocols of the review, the coalition said in a news release that same day.

Two days later, the ACLU, joined by the National Women’s Law Center and the Service Women’s Action Network, filed a similar FOIA request.

Their concern over the review is spurred by what the ACLU described in its FOIA request as “a troubling list of actions that the Department has taken to limit women servicemembers’ ability to serve in the military on equal terms as men servicemembers.”

Hegseth, in particular, the ACLU wrote, “has repeatedly denigrated women servicemembers and veterans, questioned women’s ability to serve on equal terms as men, including in ground combat positions, and undertaken a series of actions to limit or even terminate the careers of dedicated, accomplished, senior women military leaders.”

Among those purges were Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations; Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, senior military assistant to the defense secretary; Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only officer on NATO’s Military Committee; Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, who led the Defense Health Agency; and Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first female superintendent of the Naval Academy.

FOIA is a federal law that grants the public the right to request records from federal agencies.

The law, however, includes numerous exemptions that allow data to be withheld or redacted, and some requests remain unfilled for years.

In an Aug. 21 letter, the Pentagon denied the Women in the Service Coalition’s request for expedited processing because the filing had not demonstrated a “compelling need” for fast-tracking.

On Tuesday, the coalition and Seck filed a complaint in federal court in the District of Columbia seeking expedited processing.

The Pentagon review was initially conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a not-for-profit organization funded in part by the Defense Department to provide research on DOD programs.

In April, the review was reassigned to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the deadline extended to 12 months, the Pentagon said in an emailed statement Thursday.

The review is consistent with the DOD’s standard practice of evaluating the effects of significant policy changes, according to the statement.

The university lab will conduct a “Performance, Readiness, and Integrated Mission Effectiveness Assessment” that uses “proven frameworks and analytical techniques to identify the dominant drivers of combat performance variance in ground combat units and provide evidence-based findings to inform force design, training, physical standards, and readiness decisions,” the Pentagon said.

The FOIA request by Women in the Service Coalition and Seck specifically asks for Tata’s official memorandum and documentation and contracts connected to the roles of Institute for Defense and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

It explicitly excludes a request for records of raw data compiled as part of the study.