Description:

The Colloquium in International Security Studies begins its Spring 2025 series with a presentation by Natalie Shibley. A Henry A. Kissinger Visiting Associate Research Scholar in the Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy, her research examines race, homosexuality investigations, and notions of disease in the U.S. military from the 1940s to 1990s. She earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was the first recipient of a joint doctoral degree in Africana Studies and History.

Shibley will present “Homosexuality Discharges, Civil Rights, and the Vietnam War.” This paper discusses early legal challenges to the U.S. military’s homosexuality ban, focusing primarily on a comparison of the cases of two Vietnam War veterans, Leonard Matlovich and Perry Watkins. Opponents of the exclusion policy began to develop a legal strategy that relied on presenting sexual orientation as immutable and controversially analogizing sexual orientation and race.

This event is open to the Yale community; lunch will be provided. Please email kaete.oconnell@yale.edu to receive the reading materials for this colloquium.