Becket Fund victory: Air Force, DOD settle Capt. Ryan Berry lawsuit

Jun 18, 2003

June 18, 2003

Becket Fund victory: Air Force, DOD settle Capt. Ryan Berry lawsuit
Missile officer who asked religious accommodation gets clean record

Capt. Ryan Berry, an Air Force missileer who was punished by superior officers merely for requesting a religious accommodation, finally won the long battle to clear his record today. In an settlement negotiated by The Becket Fund and ratified by U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense agreed to remove all derogatory material that had been placed in Berry's military records and on USAF and DOD websites.

The settlement agreement resolves a federal lawsuit filed on August 29, 2002, in which the Air Force and DOD were charged with violating Capt. Berry's rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the U.S. Constitution and the Privacy Act.

Berry is a 1996 honors graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. He was cross-commissioned in the Air Force, where he was trained in the operation of Minuteman III missiles and assigned to Minot Air Force Base. When told of the potential for being assigned to missile alerts with a female officer (24 to 48 hours in a small underground bunker with very little privacy), Berry asked that he not be required (absent military necessity) to serve alerts with female officers as an accommodation of his Catholic belief that he should avoid situations in which he might "develop inappropriate intimacy—even platonic—with a woman who is not his wife." Berry regularly worked with women in all other aspects of his job and received a favorable evaluation from his female superior officer.

Three successive squadron commanders granted Berry the accommodation, but in December 1998, a new commander terminated the accommodation. Soon after Berry's renewed request for accommodation, a number of false and derogatory statements were placed in his official record. Efforts to have the negative material removed were rejected by the Air Force, leaving him no alternative but to file suit last year. Today's settlement gives Capt. Berry everything he had asked for during the long battle to clear his record.

"This was a particularly disturbing case, because Capt. Berry was punished simply for asking for a religious accommodation," Becket Fund President Kevin J. Hasson said. "There's an important lesson here for everyone in the Pentagon: handle requests for religious accommodation with respect and sensitivity for the constitutional rights of members of the armed services."