Monk v. United States Could Make Reparations for Black Veterans Possible
The landmark legal case poised to become the first race-based federal class action against the Department of Veterans Affairs in U.S. history
One began in Vietnam, where he served two tours as a United States Marine.
Like many veterans, he returned home carrying the lasting effects of war, including post-traumatic stress disorder and exposure to Agent Orange.
The other history began when he came home.
Again and again, Monk sought the benefits he had earned through military service.
Again and again, he was denied.
In 1971, shortly after separating from the Marines, Monk was denied unemployment benefits. In 1976, he was denied education benefits. In 1981, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) denied his claim for disability benefits related to PTSD. Two years later, he was denied access to a VA home loan. After suffering a stroke in 2010, Monk appealed for disability benefits and was denied again. When he applied once more in 2012, he received another denial.
The decisions followed him across decades, shaping not only his own life but the economic possibilities available to his family. But Monk’s story did not begin with him. Long before Conley Monk Jr. returned from Vietnam, his father encountered similar barriers after serving in World War II.
Across generations, Black veterans have described being denied access to the housing, education, health care, and disability benefits they earned through military service. For years, those accounts were treated as individual experiences rather than evidence of a larger pattern. The question was whether that pattern could be proven.
For decades, the VA did not make comprehensive race-based data on access to veterans’ benefits available to the public. Without that information, Black veterans and advocates were left with individual accounts of unequal treatment but little ability to examine the scope of those disparities.
In 2021, litigation brought by Black Veterans Project compelled the VA to release two decades of disability grant rate data by race. The data confirmed what Black veterans and their families had long described: significant racial disparities existed in the administration of veterans’ disability benefits.
The findings raised a deeper question. If disparities existed within the system, and the agency had access to evidence of those disparities, what responsibility did the VA have to address them?
That question now sits at the center of Monk v. United States, a landmark case tracing a history of benefit obstruction and denial that extends far beyond one veteran’s experience. Monk v. United States examines the ways Black veterans have encountered unequal access to the benefits promised after their service, from the administration of the GI Bill after World War II through the treatment of veterans returning from Vietnam and later conflicts.
The GI Bill, signed into law in 1944, transformed American life. It helped millions of veterans attend college, purchase homes, and build economic security. But the administration of those benefits often depended on local systems that reflected the racial order of the time. Across the country, Black veterans encountered barriers that limited their ability to access one of the most significant wealth-building programs in American history.
The consequences of those decisions did not disappear when the policies changed. They shaped families and communities for generations.
In March of 2024, a federal district judge in Connecticut rejected the United States government’s argument that it was immune from the lawsuit, allowing Monk v. United States to proceed. The ruling did not determine the outcome of the case, but it allowed allegations of systemic racial discrimination and resulting harm to move forward in federal court.
For the Monk family, the case represents generations of military service.
“My father fought at Normandy. My brother fought in Vietnam. My sister, another brother, and I served. And we will not stop fighting until VA treats all veterans equally,” said Garry Monk, Conley Monk’s son and executive director of the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress.
The lawsuit emerged from years of collaboration between Black Veterans Project, Conley Monk Jr., the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, and the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School. Together, they built a legal challenge around a question that Black veterans and their families had raised for decades: whether the unequal treatment experienced by Black veterans reflected individual failures or a broader institutional pattern.
“Since its inception, VA has designed and implemented its benefits programs to reinforce our nation’s racial caste system, neglecting its moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to intervene to ensure racism was not a barrier to accessing home loans, education benefits, and disability compensation,” said Richard Brookshire, co-founder and co-CEO of Black Veterans Project.
For Black Veterans Project, the case represents both a legal challenge and an effort to understand the consequences of a system that distributed opportunity unevenly among those who served.
“I hope the advancement of Monk v. United States spurs a broader societal recognition of the systemic barriers that have impeded Black veterans from accessing tools to build wealth for themselves and their families,” said Daniele Anderson, co-founder of Black Veterans Project.
The evidence gathered through the case has changed the terms of the conversation around Black veterans’ experiences. What was once difficult to establish beyond individual testimony is now part of a documented legal record.
“The disparate treatment of Black veterans can no longer be waived away as conjecture or purely anecdotal; it is now a matter of statistical fact and judicial debate,” said Daniel Walker, former board member of Black Veterans Project.
For much of his life, Conley Monk Jr. carried the memory of promises that were made to him as a veteran and the reality of what happened when he attempted to claim them.
Monk v. United States asks whether those experiences represent a series of individual failures or the result of systems that produced unequal outcomes over generations. After decades of denials, that question is finally being examined in court.
Black Veterans Project is the first comprehensive effort building the collective power of Black veterans, military families, and their allies to demand federal repair, protect racial equity, and preserve our nation’s multiracial democracy. Support from allies like you makes our work possible. Please consider a donation to ensure repair and equity are made possible.
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