On February 18, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit cleared the way for the Department of Defense to reinstate a long-standing policy that bars people living with HIV from enlisting. In Wilkins v. Hegseth, the court found the DOD had offered a rational basis for excluding applicants with HIV — even those whose infection is well-controlled and who maintain an undetectable viral load on treatment.
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.
How the case began The dispute started after routine military screening flagged HIV in several prospective recruits. Lead plaintiff Isaiah Wilkins, a 24-year-old Black gay man, says he lost an Army Reserves placement while transferring from the Georgia National Guard to the U.S. Military Academy Preparatory School after testing positive. Two other plaintiffs named in court papers — Carol Coe, a transgender woman seeking reenlistment, and Natalie Noe, a cisgender woman denied enlistment in — bring similar claims that their HIV status alone prevented them from serving.
Plaintiffs challenged the policy as arbitrary and discriminatory. They pointed to decades of medical progress, arguing treatment dramatically reduces health risks and makes transmission negligible when the virus is suppressed. Counsel highlighted examples of service members elsewhere who have managed HIV while serving effectively and without restriction.
The Department of Defense defended the rule as tied to military readiness and unit cohesion. DOD lawyers emphasized concerns about deployments to austere or remote locations, continuity of care in those environments, and potential medical-evacuation burdens. The Fourth Circuit credited those operational concerns in its opinion.
What the lower court found — and what the appeals court reviewed At the district level in, judges enjoined the ban, finding plaintiffs were likely to succeed on some claims and concluding the policy was irrational, arbitrary and capricious. The district court accepted evidence that medically treated, virally suppressed people with HIV can perform duties without limitations and pose negligible transmission risk — a factual finding that informed its administrative-law ruling.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit narrowed its focus largely to legal and procedural questions: had the Department followed the necessary rulemaking steps, and did it apply the proper legal standards? The panel treated those procedural and doctrinal issues as distinct from the trial court’s factual findings about medical risk. By concentrating on process, the appeals court did not resolve every scientific contention raised at trial; instead it scrutinized whether the administrative record justified the policy under the deferential standards that typically govern judicial review of military decisions.
Why the court deferred to the military Writing for the panel, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer said the DOD articulated legitimate military concerns that deserved deference. The opinion outlined three lines of permissible reasoning: possible effects on combat readiness, diplomatic or operational complications in host nations that could arise if HIV-positive personnel were deployed, and anticipated medical costs and logistics of treating deployed service members.
The court also noted that the policy restricts HIV-positive service members from deploying outside the contiguous United States, treating that deployment limitation as relevant to the policy’s rationality. Applying a deferential standard, the panel concluded barring enlistment was reasonably related to the DOD’s mission and fell within the department’s policymaking authority.
Responses from advocates and the medical community Civil-rights and HIV advocacy groups reacted sharply. Lambda Legal called the ruling a setback; Gregory Nevins, a senior counsel, stressed that decades of scientific progress have transformed HIV into a chronic, manageable condition. Clinicians and public-health advocates reiterated the U=U principle — undetectable equals untransmittable — arguing that people with sustained viral suppression can carry out duties without meaningful risk of transmitting the virus.
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.0
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.1
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.2
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.3
The suit, filed in, was brought by three HIV-positive adults who sought to enlist or reenlist and by the advocacy organization Minority Veterans of America. Lambda Legal and several private firms represented the plaintiffs. The Fourth Circuit’s decision overturns a Virginia district court injunction that had temporarily blocked the enlistment ban.4