Expelled cadet challenging Coast Guard Academy on parental ban policy

A former cadet is suing the U.S. Coast Guard Academy over its policy that bans its students from being parents, years after he was expelled for violating the rule.

Isaak Olson, 29, sued over the parental policy on Wednesday in a lawsuit that names three high-profile defendants: Alejandro Mayorkos, the secretary of Homeland Security, Karl Schultz, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, and William Kelly, the superintendent of the academy.

The lawsuit was filed with a local American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter through the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The academy is located within the state, in New London.

The filed complaint argues the parental policy is an outdated “blanket ban” prohibiting cadets from being parents. Lawyers are pushing to eliminate the policy from the academy.

“The Academy’s strict regulation prohibiting parents from being cadets forces cadets like Mr. Olson to make an agonizing decision: either resign from the Academy and forfeit their college degree and commission as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard, or remain enrolled but surrender their parental rights, terminate their pregnancy, or pressure their partner to terminate their pregnancy,” the lawsuit reads.

The policy was implemented in the 1970s, just before women were allowed to enter the academy, according to ACLU attorneys who spoke with The Associated Press.

“The decision to become a parent is deeply personal, and no school or job should be able to interfere with that choice,” said Elana Bildner, the ACLU’s staff attorney on the case in a press release. “The U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s archaic regulation, which forces cadets to choose between parenthood and their degrees, has been morally wrong and unconstitutional since its inception. It is likely no accident that the academy instituted its arcane ban on parenthood only after it began admitting women. This policy has no place in Connecticut or elsewhere, and it must end.”

Olson was in his junior year at the academy when his girlfriend became pregnant in 2013. According to the lawsuit, Olson knew he had violated the policy and was wracked with grief and anxiety. He also knew the academy could recoup the $500,000 it had spent on his education if they expelled him.

Olson was asked whether he was a parent during a screening application — and the academy expelled him in 2014. Olson was just two months away from earning a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering and becoming an officer at the prestigious military academy.

Olson has never received a diploma elsewhere but he continued to enlist with the U.S. Coast Guard. He is now employed as an aviation technician in Alaska. But Olson makes $3,000 less per month than he would if he were an officer, the lawsuit alleges.

Attorneys also argue the policy creates a chilling effect.

“The Academy’s ban has forced cadets to limit contact with or estrange themselves from their children and co-parents, involuntarily surrender their parental rights and responsibilities to avoid disenrollment from the Academy, and hide significant parts of their identities from their colleagues,” it reads.

The United States has similar bans at the Military Academy, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and the Merchant Marine Academy.

A bill introduced this year and sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), would eliminate the parental ban at all of the academies.

The Hill has reached out to the Coast Guard Academy for comment.

Updated Friday at 9:23 a.m.