The Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) has been investigating, for more than a year, a pattern of improper behavior and abuse of power by certain officials in the Office of the Navy Judge Advocate General (OJAG). The confidential probe began when Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, filed a formal Request for Assistance with Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitzon June 11, 2002. The Request for Assistance became necessary in order to stop a pattern of deliberate bias on the part of Navy JAG officers—several of whom constantly interfered in litigation filed against Donnelly and CMR by former F-14 pilot Carey D. Lohrenz. ¹  More than a thousand pages of carefully indexed documents—many of which were obtained during the discovery process—supported Donnelly’s Request for Assistance. . . Read More

On August 16, 2002, Washington D.C. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth dismissed, with prejudice, the lawsuit filed by Plaintiff Carey D. Lohrenz against Elaine Donnelly and the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) in 1996. The Court’s 55-page opinion identified Lohrenz as a “limited-purpose public figure.” She was therefore not eligible to sue Donnelly for publishing the comprehensive CMR Special Report: Double Standards in Naval Aviation in 1995. The Court also found that Donnelly had acted responsibly and without “actual malice.” ¹ Following preliminary motions, Plaintiff Lohrenz filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on April 11, 2003. Represented this time by Richmond Law School Professor Rodney Smolla, Lohrenz challenged the District Court’s dismissal of her case on CMR’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Among other things, her appeal claims that: . . . Read More

The Center for Military Readiness is pleased to report that a lawsuit intended to impose Selective Service obligations on young women has been dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. ¹In an 8-page opinion, U.S. Senior District Judge Edward F. Harrington upheld the right of Congress to exempt women from Selective Service registration for a possible future draft. In doing so, the Court frequently cited the landmark 1981 decision  . . . Read More

Feminists who filed a baseless lawsuit against the Center for Military Readiness and Elaine Donnelly in 1996 have not given up on their malicious campaign to silence Donnelly and shut down CMR. On August 16, 2002, Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a harassment lawsuit filed against CMR by Plaintiff Carey Dunai Lohrenz, who blames Donnelly for her own failure to succeed as an F-14 pilot in 1995. The victory was gratifying but very costly. Legal costs since 1996 have mounted to more than half a million dollars. . . Read More

The Center for Military Readiness is celebrating victory in litigation that President Elaine Donnelly described as "harassment by feminist advocates who misused the Court to threaten my rights of free speech. This victory upholds the right of CMR to question official policies that elevate risks, and to advocate high, uncompromised standards in naval aviation training." The lawsuit was filed in April 1996 by former Lt. Carey Dunai Lohrenz, who was one of the first two women trained to fly the F-14 Tomcat. In October 1994 her colleague, Lt. Kara Hultgreen, crashed and died while attempting to land on the carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. Lohrenz was removed from carrier aviation in May 1995, due to flawed flying techniques that her superiors described as "unsafe, undisciplined, and unpredictable." With the help of attorney Susan Barnes, a feminist activist, Lohrenz blamed Donnelly for causing her to wash out by publishing the 1995 CMR Special Report: Double Standards in Naval Aviation Training. . . Read More