discriminated against
African-American military
veterans dating back decades,
disproportionately rejecting
disability claims from black
veterans at a much higher rate
than white veterans.
That's according to a new
lawsuit filed in federal court
this past week by Yale law
school's veterans legal services
clinic.
The group filed the suit on
behalf of Conley monk Jr., a
Vietnam war veteran whose va
benefits were denied for nearly
50 years.
He's joining me now along with
Richard Brookshire, who served
in the U.S. Army before
co-founding the black veterans
project.
Welcome to you both.
Richard: Thank you.
Conley: Happy to be here.
Geoff: And, Mr. Monk, you
enlisted in November 1968.
You served in Vietnam, but you
were wrongfully denied an
honorable discharge, which meant
that you received no va
benefits.
The va denied your applications
for education, housing, and
disability benefits before
finally agreeing in December
2020 that you were, in fact,
eligible all along.
How did the lack of va benefits
affect your life?
Conley: It really damaged me by
this, not letting my family
receive any form of benefits.
I couldn't receive any benefits,
and neither could they, so my
kids was not entitled to
educational benefits, which they
should have been entitled to.
They could have also got some
sort of stipend while they was
going to school.
Also the fact that I couldn't
even get my job back.
I worked for the va when I left
to go in the military and I came
home, I couldn't get my job
back.
I joined.
I did not get drafted, you know.
So I wanted to go to fight for
my country to be involved in the
Vietnam war.
I felt that I was totally robbed
of my rightful dues when I came
back from Vietnam.
I served honorably in Vietnam.
I was involved in a lot of
different combat actions.
It was totally a, you know,
disgrace to me and my family in
the fact that we were denied
benefits that I was rightfully
entitled to.
Geoff: Richard Brookshire, you
created the black veterans
project, which is a nonprofit
that researches the inequities
that black veterans face.
After you struggled to get the
resources you needed when you
came back from Afghanistan.
Give us a sense of your story
and why do you think these
hurdles have persisted across
generations?
Richard: Yeah, I served as a
combat medic for seven years --
four those on active duty, three
of them in the New York state
National Guard, and had a
difficult transition out of the
military that I wasn't actually
anticipating.
I wasn't taken seriously by the
va.
So I found myself,
unfortunately, on the other side
of a suicide attempt.
And it just so happens that
after that attempt I started to
really engage the black veterans
community, but I also started to
engage, like, what are the
disparities?
Like, I mean, I'm living with
them, I'm starting to see them,
but, like, getting a better
sense of the numbers was kind of
like the first instinct for me,
and so we went to Yale and said,
hey, like, you know, we want the
most contemporary data to kind
of look at are there disparities
in disability compensation?
Because I've heard about the
disparities of the gi bill at
the turn of World War II.
I think Conley is a perfect
example of how dishonorable
discharges have perpetuated,
locking many black vets even to
this very day out of access to
their benefits.
Geoff: And Mr. Monk, to
Richard's point about the sort
of generational aspect of this,
you come from a family of
service members.
Your father fought in a
segregated unit during World War
II.
Your siblings were also in the
armed forces.
And you make the point that you
and your siblings could have
gone to college potentially if
your father had gotten the
benefits that he applied for and
was denied back in the 1940s.
Conley: Yes.
And, you know, it continued, you
know, after my father.
My daughter, my baby girl, she
had the struggle, to work and go
to school and she owes $100,000
on a student loan at this
present date.
She's now a principal in one of
the major high schools, but, you
know, we we suffered.
We sustained an injury and we
continued to.
And I think it snowballed down
to like my grandkids, you know,
my grandkids, they would have
had a better chance of going to
school if they would have been
entitled to the moneys that
their mother could have got to
go to school to help them out.
And not only that, the housing
benefits.
You know, we was denied housing
benefits where I could not get a
G.I. Housing law.
My father had to work two full
time jobs in order to provide a
living situation for us.
So, yeah, it really damaged my
family, me and my family.
Geoff: Well, we reached out to
the va to get a statement in
response to this lawsuit.
And without addressing the
merits of the suit, we got this
statement, part of which reads
this way -- "Secretary Mcdonough
has made clear that delivering
world class, timely, equitable
care and benefits to all
veterans is our top priority at
va.
Throughout history, there have
been unacceptable disparities in
both va benefits decisions and
military discharge status due to
racism, which have wrongly left
black veterans without access to
va care and benefits.
We are actively working to right
these wrongs and we will stop at
nothing to ensure that all black
veterans get the va services
they have earned and deserve."
Richard Brookshire, the va is
acknowledging that, yes, there's
a problem.
I guess the question is what
should be done about it?
Richard: Fostering equity is
great and noble, but it's not
redress.
I think this administration has
been really supportive.
But I also think that there's
been decades to do something
about this.
We're 75 years out next year
looking at the fully integrated
force that we have now.
It's a time for a reckoning and
it's a time to account for the
history and the ills that have
been done at the hands of the
va.
Geoff: Mr. Monk, what are you
hoping that this lawsuit filed
on your behalf achieves?
Conley: Well, I hope it opens up
the door for other vets to not
be able to be blocked, just like
I was -- where they can go ahead
and get their disability
benefits without being
discriminated against.
Reparations and compensation is
what I think should occur.
Geoff: Conley monk Jr. And
Richard Brookshire, I thank you
both for your time and for your
insights.