In 2009, Melissa Hemphill was in her third year at the Air Force Academy when she found out she was pregnant. She panicked because she knew the academy could expel her for violating its rule that forbids cadets from having kids. She wasn’t happy with any of her options.
“Because there’s this policy, you would have to give your child up for adoption, or get rid of your parental rights, have an abortion, or leave and keep your rights,” Hemphill said about the policy first enacted in the mid-1970s — around the same time that women first entered the academies.
Back in 2009, Melissa’s future husband, Anthony, was a cadet too, and on the cusp of graduation. Both were determined to finish school and serve as Air Force officers, so dropping out was off the table, especially because that move would have required them to reimburse the government the cost of their tuition.
Ultimately, the couple decided Melissa would relinquish her parental rights, even though they thought it was risky.
“I was basically told, ‘You can give your rights up, but there's no guarantee you'll ever get them back,’” Hemphill said about the series of tough conversations she had with her lawyers.
The Hemphills said they spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and hoped Melissa’s termination of her legal rights could be undone by adopting back her own son after she graduated. It worked, but Melissa said she still felt stigmatized.
“Every time we showed up somewhere, it was like, ‘Ah, the pregnant cadet problem,’” she said. “That’s sort of how I felt, instead of just being this girl who found out she was pregnant, unplanned and unexpected.”
Now, as the U.S. military academies prepare to kick off the fall semester, for the first time they will allow cadets to become parents. The policy against having dependents while enrolled at the service academies is over due to a law Congress passed in 2021. While it still forbids parents from enrolling in the service academies, cadets who become parents after enrolling won't be kicked out.
The effort to pass the law united a pair of unlikely allies from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“It was wildly unfair, and it was frankly stupid,” Cruz said, since the military already knows how to accommodate the families of active duty troops, and the academies shouldn’t enforce a policy that can lead to abortion in order to serve.
“It was not something that there was any sound military basis for imposing, that a 21-year-old cadet is somehow unable and has no right to be a parent in a way that a 22-year-old soldier suddenly magically acquires that right,” Cruz said. “That didn't make sense.“
Like Cruz, Democrat Gillibrand sees the policy as unfair too, especially towards women.
“I think the rules were stuck in the past when it was just men at the academies,” Gillibrand said.
For her, the policy was antiquated and infringed on womens’ rights to bodily autonomy.
“It's important that we allow members of our military who are pregnant to be able to continue their education and to have a pregnancy plan in place where they can manage that pregnancy and their child,” she said.
Congress directed the Defense Department to rewrite the policy by last December, but the academies say they're still waiting for official guidance from the Pentagon.
In the meantime, at least one of the academies has already begun accommodating cadets with children. At the Air Force Academy, they'll be required to set up a temporary guardianship for their kids — similar to the process enlisted airmen and officers go through, according to Melissa’s husband, Anthony Hemphill.
“We get to not be forced into decisions that we're going to regret,” he said. “We get to make decisions as leaders for our families. And that's what we're expected to do as leaders in the military, not just for ourselves, but our troops as well.”
While the Hemphills are happy for the policy change, Melissa doubts it will bring about a flood of new cadet parents.
“Even if we could do it again under the new policy, I would still never recommend doing this, Melissa said. “It is such a hard way to start your family.”
A spokesperson says the Defense Department is still working on official policy changes. Cruz and GIllibrand both say they’ve been assured the academies will adhere to the spirit of the law, and that the Pentagon will issue directions on how to implement it soon.
