Analysis and Perspective
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Female pilot sues U.S. alleging bias
Lt. Col.Martha McSally says the military's dress code in Saudi Arabia violates her rights to religious freedom
BY JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Providence Journal Washington Bureau
In a suit filed in federal District Court here, Lt. Col. Martha McSally says that U.S. military women must wear black head-to-foot robes called "abayas" and ride in the back seat when off base. They can only leave base if they are accompanied by a man.
"The regulations are irrational, promulgated without sufficient governmental justification, and do not evenhandedly regulate dress and conduct," McSally argues in her lawsuit, which names Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as defendant.
The suit says the policy undercuts her standing as an officer and violates her constitutional rights to religious freedom and due process of law. Male military personnel in Saudi Arabia are not subject to the Muslim strictures.
McSally, 35, is an Air Force Academy graduate who lists herself in the lawsuit as a Texas resident. While stationed in Saudi Arabia, McSally has been commander of an Air Force unit in charge of search-and-rescue missions over Iraq, according to her lawyer.
Her suit asserts that, "for the first time in her stellar career, McSally's professionalism, loyalty, leadership, and character have been called into question" because of her public position against the policy.
A Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the leaders in McSally's chain of command have treated her protests straightforwardly and have taken no action against her.
The official explained the policy as a security measure, saying that "whether we like it or not," Saudi religious officials are empowered to physically punish women who appear in public in violation of Muslim dress codes.
"It's a security issue. We don't want our people to actually be standing out per se," said Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Klee, a spokesman for the Defense Department's Central Command, which has jurisdiction over Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, where McSally is stationed.
Compliance with the dress requirement makes U.S. military women "less of a target," said Klee, who called the policy "a command issue" set at the level of the local U.S. commander in Saudi Arabia.
Klee also said the policy arises "because we are guests in their country" and military personnel should "try not to be offensive to their culture."
McSally's lawyer, Thomas S. Neuberger, ridiculed those explanations.
"No local commander is going to impose restrictions that undermine unit cohesion" by treating two groups of personnel -- men and women -- by two different standards, Neuberger said.
"Two 18-year-old privates leave the base. The woman is covered head to toe. The man wears a T-shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. When they get back to the base, the guy says, 'Woman, get behind me,' and tells her to walk 10 steps back. Martha has seen this happen. It's not good for morale."
Furthermore, Neuberger said, no such restrictions apply to female employees of the State Department in Saudi Arabia or to other foreign women in the country.
Neuberger also said the policy has been applied inconsistently. Women stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war "drove Jeeps, did their jobs, wore the same uniforms as men," he said.
Only after the war were servicewomen required to wear abayas off base and to carry head scarves with them at all times, Neuberger said. He said the rule covers about 800 women in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.
In fact, McSally has said that she helped to derail a similar restriction during her 1995-96 tour of duty in Kuwait. Until she lobbied against the rule, military women in Kuwait were required to cover their bodies from head to toe while jogging, even on base.
Neuberger said McSally protested the restrictive policy in Saudi Arabia through the chain of command and filed her lawsuit only as a last resort.
McSally has had, by all accounts, a blazing career. She was a star athlete and class valedictorian at St. Mary's Academy-Bay View. She graduated 25th in her class at the Air Force Academy and later trained as a pilot and was long stationed at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas. She was among the first seven women to train as fighter pilots.
She became the first to fly combat sorties, in an A-10 "Warthog" attack plane over Iraq in the mid-1990s. She has served as a flight commander and trainer of combat pilots deployed to Kosovo and South Korea.
She was promoted to the ranks of major and lieutenant colonel two years ahead of her peers, in what her lawsuit calls "a rare endorsement that is given to the most capable, competent and professional officers, and only to those who are identified as future leaders of the Air Force."
Along the way, McSally has been a Congressional Fellow and the top-ranking woman among the nation's military triathletes. Until she went public last spring with her complaints about the policy on female personnel in Saudi Arabia, her career path seemed unlimited.
"I think you come to times in your life when you have to make a tough decision -- whether to stand up for convictions and seize the opportunity to speak out, with respect, or cover yourself," she said at the time.
"She understands it's going to destroy her career," Neuberger said, "but she's doing this so that other women won't have to take the hit."
Digital Extra:
Read the full text of the lawsuit filed by Lt. Col. Martha McSally at:
http://projo.com/news/mcsally.pdf