VA denied benefits for Black veterans at higher rate for decades, lawsuit says

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• Geoff Bennett:

  The U.S. government has 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 Schools 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 CAPITO: -founding the Black Veterans Project. Welcome to you both.

• Richard Brookshire, Co-Founder, Black Veterans Project:

  Thank you.

• Conley Monk, Jr., Vietnam War Veteran:

  Happy to be here.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And Mr. Monk, you enlisted in November 1968, you served in Vietnam. But you were wrongfully denied an honorable discharge, which meant that you receive 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 Monk, Jr.:

  It really damaged me by this, not letting my family received any form of benefits. I couldn't receive any benefits and neither could day. So, my kids was not entitled to educational benefits, which they should have been entitled to. They could have also got some sort of the stipend, why they was going to school. And 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 rifle dues when I came back from Vietnam. I served honorably, in Vietnam. You know, I was involved in a lot of different combat actions. It was totally a, you know, disgrace to me and my family and the fact that we was denied benefits that I was rightfully entitled to.

• Geoff Bennett:

  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 Brookshire:

  Yeah, I served as a combat medic for seven years for those one active duty three of them in the New York State National Guard, and had a difficult transition, you know, out of the military — there wasn't actually anticipating, it 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 attempts, I started to really engage the black veterans community. But I also started to engage like, what's — 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. 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'm — I've heard about disparities in the GI bill at the turn of World War Two. 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 Bennett:

  And Mr. Monk, to Richard's point about this sort of generational aspect of this. You come from a family of service members, your father fought in a segregated unit during World War Two, 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 Monk, Jr.:

  Yes and you know it continue, you know, after my father, my daughter, my baby girl, she had to struggle the work and go to school. And she'll $100,000 on a student loan at this present date. He's now a principal in one of the major high schools. But, you know, we suffer, we sustained an injury. And we continue to and I think it's snow balled 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 monies that their mother could have got to go to school to help them out.

  And not only that, that housing benefits, you know, we was denied housing benefits, where I could not get a GI Housing Loan. My father had to work two full time jobs in order to provide living situation for us. So, yeah, it really damaged my family, me and my family.

• Geoff Bennett:

  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 that reads, 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 Brookshire:

  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, like we're settling to 75 years out next year, looking at the fully integrated force that we have now. And it's a time for reckoning, and it's a time to account for the history and the ills that had been done at the hands of the VA.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Mr. Monk, what are you hoping that this lawsuit filed on your behalf achieves?

• Conley Monk, Jr.:

  Well, I hope that 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 the disability benefits without being discriminated against reparations and compensation is what I think should occur.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Conley Monk Jr. and Richard Brookshire, I thank you both for your time and for your insights.