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Justice Clarence Thomas argued on Monday that a former West Point cadet should have been allowed to sue after she was raped at the academy.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the case because of a 71-year-old decision that bars military personnel from suing when the injury was in incident to military service. In this case, a woman identified as Jane Doe argued that the Army’s officer training academy had policies that were “inadequate to protect students from sexual violence.”
Thomas wrote that he believed that the court erred in blocking the suit, particularly because the plain text of the Federal Tort Claims Act allowed her to sue. Thomas added that under the court’s current precedent, government employees are blocked from suing in situations in which a civilian would be able to do so.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a woman who says she was raped as a West Point cadet, with Justice Clarence Thomas alone arguing that the court should have heard her case.
Clarence Thomas disagrees with Supreme Court refusal to hear military rape case
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Members of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for a group photo at the court in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Seated, from left to right, are Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Standing, from left to right, are Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Pool Photo by Erin Schaff/UPI | License Photo
Chief Justice John Roberts. Pool Photo by Erin Schaff/UPI | License Photo
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Pool Photo by Erin Schaff/UPI | License Photo
cadet’s Fifth Amendment suit was the ideal vehicle for the
Supreme Court to fix a 70-year-old mistake.
The West Point Museum houses artifacts from the U.S. military academy of the same name, as well as the U.S. Army and the Profession of Arms. (Image courtesy of U.S. Military via Courthouse News)
WASHINGTON (CN) Justice Clarence Thomas balked Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether the prestigious military academy West Point negligently handled a cadet’s rape claim.
The cadet filed her suit anonymously in 2013, three years after she says a fellow student raped her and she dropped out of the program, overwhelmed by the stress of trying to hold her assailant accountable through West Point’s disciplinary channels. Blaming her superior officers for having created a misogynistic and sexually aggressive culture at the school, Jane Doe said that they not only “discriminated against female cadets” but “put female cadets at risk of violent harm.”