Kathy L. Snyder

About the Author: Kathy L. Snyder is a law student at the West Virginia University College of Law in Morgantown.

Law and policy restrict women in the United States Military from serving in positions that would require them to engage in direct combat. The Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 excludes women from Air Force and Navy vessels and aircraft that might engage in combat. The Army and the Marine Corps also exclude women from combat through their official established policies. The result of these statutes and policies is the exclusion of women, on the sole basis of gender, from over twelve percent of the skill positions and thirty-nine percent of the total positions offered by the Department of Defense. There has never been a direct challenge to the constitutionality of these laws...