According to Vermont Law School student Amy Whitehorne, the lgbt Alliance at the school wants to invite retired Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer to speak at its fall conference next October.
      Cammermeyer's 1994 memoir Serving in Silence brought the unfair treatment of lesbian and gay soldiers to the public in a new way. It was later made into a movie starring Glenn Close.
      When Cammermeyer – who had been married for 15 years and bore four sons – came out as a lesbian to military officials in June of 1989 during a security-clearance interview, the Vietnam veteran with a bronze star and numerous awards was involuntarily separated from the service.
      On June 11, 1992, she filed suit in Federal District Court in Seattle to challenge the ban on homosexuals in the military and requested reinstatement. Twenty-five months later, the judge ruled the policy was unconstitutional and based on prejudice. Cammermeyer was reinstated in the National Guard in June of 1994 and, after 31 years of service, retired with full military privileges three years later.
      The Vermont Law School Alliance is seeking other Vermont or New England organizations to schedule Col. Cammermeyer as a speaker during October in order to reduce the per-organization cost.

Contact Amy Whitehorne, treasurer of the Vermont Law School Alliance, for more info: awhitehorne@vermontlaw.edu