Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs — Public Testimony

*On June 5, 2024, I offered some comments during the public comment section of the Advisory Council's quarterly meeting in Salem, Oregon.

My name is Logan M. Isaac. I was in the Army from 2000 to 2006 and I got out as an E-5, paratrooper and forward observer for the artillery. When I got out, I started pursuing higher education and used VA services across a couple of different states. I landed here about a year ago.

I'm really interested in the question of why some veterans aren't self-identifying, and I want to propose that there's another way to think about suicide prevention that isn't getting enough exposure: civil rights, from the federal level on down.

Our civil rights as veterans, former service members, and military dependents are a hodgepodge of poorly enforced statutes and municipal codes. Here in Oregon, we are not protected — the closest we come is employment protection under ORS 659A.082. Our neighbor to the south, California, recognizes military families as a fully protected class. At the federal level, veterans and military families haven't asserted those rights — we're sometimes surprised to learn that employment discrimination and housing discrimination are occurring, but we keep it silent because we've been taught to shut up and drive on.

I think human dignity is the missing link for suicide prevention. I'd like to see Oregon come up to speed with California, and I'd also like to encourage and advocate at the federal level — not just for civil rights laws to be passed, but for the laws that already protect us to actually be enforced.

For example: the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 included an entire section — Section 4712 — that extended similar protections to service members and their families for up to five years after discharge. The Department of Justice at the federal level does not know about this law. It has never enforced it, and its own agents have had no idea what I was talking about when I've called and asked for information. But it's been in place since 2009, and we still haven't gotten hate crimes protections for our community, because individuals who are targeted — usually by what we'd call domestic terrorists — typically get charged under domestic terrorism statutes instead. Those charges are easier to get a confession or conviction on, but hate crimes statutes are explicitly intended to protect our entire community. So individual victims are getting spot-check protection, but our community as a whole is falling through the loopholes.

I don't know how much time I have left, and I'll try to avoid identifying information, but — again, I'm only mentioning the federal level because Oregon doesn't have a similar protection — there's a law called VEVRAA [Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act] that's supposed to extend employment protections to veterans. However, its enforcement agency, the OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs], receives more complaints from veterans than from any other complainant group, and has since 2004. More veterans complain of employment discrimination to the Department of Labor than any other complainant group — but veterans' VEVRAA complaints have the lowest rate of findings of merit. Essentially, the Department of Labor doesn't believe veterans when they complain of employment discrimination. Thirteen percent of those complaints since 2004 have come from the state of Oregon, because Oregon does not protect veterans from employment discrimination, and Oregon does not protect veterans from hate crimes or bias incidents either, on paper.

I'd like to see that closed. I'd like to see Oregon be an example for the federal level — not just to put protections into law, as California has, but to advocate for comprehensive enforcement of veterans' and service members' civil rights, including by the EEOC, which excludes veterans from its protection, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which also excludes veterans.

[One more minute]

For example: income discrimination. I know a veteran who used his VA disability income to apply for an apartment. The apartment manager was very formal, t's crossed and i's dotted — and that landlord didn't believe a federal document, the VA compensation letter, that I receive as well. He held up that application for a highly sought-after apartment. That represents income discrimination, and there's no protection against it. I think it's clear on its face that examples like these are affecting veterans every day, and I'd like to think that Americans and Oregonians are willing to step up to the plate and start closing those loopholes. Thank you very much.

Respondent 1

Sure, if I could respond — I think what happened was atrocious. My father is a Vietnam vet. He was on the Enterprise, for an enlistment he volunteered for to avoid the infantry, and he never hid that from me or anybody in our family, but he also didn't talk about it. I think what's happened with my generation is the pendulum has swung — "thank you for your service" has become, for me and for most of the vets I talk to (which are mostly the kind of vets that Tina works with), a hollow sentiment. It just continues to conceal the fact that we don't know what to do with veterans, and we haven't, because it's a passable identity — I'll become a civilian and try to get whatever benefits I should be deserving.

I won't get into any of my personal case details here, but when civilians find out, they'll say I'm "hard to work with," and they'll have all these excuses for not giving me equal treatment. The only facet I think I have is the law, so — I can't pursue anything in Oregon, but there's a case I'm about to start in California. It's incredibly subtle and sinister, and I don't think what happened to you has gone away. It's just changed form.

I was a trained researcher, and I've been a stay-at-home dad for five years, and that's what gave me the time. Now I'm ready to step up and start forcing those loopholes closed if I have to.

Respondent 2

I do — I just want to add on very quickly to what our vice chair shared. For those of us who are younger veterans — myself included — I didn't identify as a veteran at the beginning, and I have a hard time identifying as one even now. Women veterans, LGBTQ veterans, also have challenges, and it's something we should talk more about and do more about. We do have advocacy here, but there is a statewide issue in that regard, and a national issue in that regard, and I want to acknowledge that's absolutely true.

You mentioned civil rights, and I would very much like to — either myself or someone on my team — follow up with you on that. I'll share with you quickly, just for awareness: there is a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice. Small shop, but they do work, and they actually have a new civil rights hotline that I can try to get information to you about. My team and I are working closely with the Employment Department, and I'm happy to bring up — they may well already be aware — but I'm happy to raise in my next meeting with the director some of the employment discrimination points he made.

I can say my son is a veteran, and finding positions for veterans, and employers who say they hire veterans but don't follow through — everybody here knows that's absolutely not supposed to be the case.

I won't share too much personally, but I want you to know these are very important points, and I appreciate them.

Logan M. Isaac — Closing Remarks

If I may, just a closing remark: I learned, as a white, cis, male, Evangelical — that bias and injustice are only as strong as their weakest link. The more I spoke up as a veteran, the more I was told to decenter myself, as a white guy, cis, mass-presenting. But — if Martin [Luther King Jr.] said a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere — if there's a Black veteran, and that landlord just didn't want to rent to Black people, he could fully legally say "every veteran is a baby killer," and that individual would have no recourse. A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere, and I think it begins and ends with being better friends, here in our state. Thank you, and thank you for letting me go on. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Logan.