Objection to Settlement Agreement and Release of All Claims — U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden (Dkt. 298)

Summary

Robert A. Green Jr., who identifies as a Commander, USN and a class member, files an Objection to Settlement Agreement and Release of All Claims in U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden, Document 298, filed 07/16/24. The objection argues that the settlement lacks accountability, citing a complaint concerning Rear Admiral James P. Waters, and that correcting administrative records does not repair harms such as missed promotions. It argues that the class should seek monetary damages, citing the judgment in Benton v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (over $687,000, including $500,000 in punitive damages) and estimating $2 Billion in punitive damages alone. It also criticizes the website message and training presentation the Navy is required to post, and states that the writer cannot appear at the Fairness Hearing.

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Case 4:21-cv-01236-O Document 298 Filed 07/16/24 Pageiof6 PagelD 8350

OBJECTION TO SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT AND RELEASE OFALL CLAIMS In
U.S. Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden, 4:22- cv-01236- 0 (. D. Tex.)

[ THE DISTR {

To: United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas: tt
From: Robert A. Green Jr.

Ref: (a) 42 USC § 1983 et oe - COUR |
(b) Article 1150, U.S. Navy Regulations CLERK. US. WW
(1) Complaint of Wrong Under Art 1150, U.S. Navy Reguliiiend Against Rear Admiral
Waters for Violation of the First Amendment and 42 USC § 1983, 1 Jul 2024
(2) Screenshot demonstrating that Respondent’s government X| Twitter] account,
@USNRecruiter, blocked Complainant’s private X[Twitter] account @RobGreen1010
(3) U.S. Navy Biography, Rear Admiral James Waters HI, Director, Military Personnel
Plans and Policy Division, N13, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations
(4) Complaint of Wrong Under Art 1150, U.S. Navy Regulations Against Vice Admiral
Nowell for Unlawful Religious Discrimination, 23 Dec 2021
(5) Judgment Order, Benton v. BlueCross BlueShield of TN Inc, Case 1:22-cv-00118, U.S.
District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee, 28 June 2024

I, Robert A. Green Jr., one of the People as seen in the U.S. and all 50 American state
constitutions, republic in form, Sui Juris, serve this objection to the Court, that it may also serve as
notice to all parties involved.

In addition to being a member of We The People, I also hold the office of Commander, USN,
and, by virtue of having filed a religious accommodation to the Navy mandate of the COVID-19
injection, I am a member of the Navy class as described in U.S. Navy SEALs v. Biden, 4:22-cv-
01236-O (N.D. Tex).

As aclass member, I object to the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of this settlement
agreement for the following reasons:

Accountability

Nothing in this settlement holds Defendants or their agents accountable for their violations
and abuses. This lack of accountability has directly contributed to ongoing violations of the First
Amendment and continued harms to class members. One of Defendant’s agents, Rear Admiral James
P. Waters, was a direct party to the violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that led to
this Court granting a class-wide preliminary injunction. Rather than hold him accountable for his
violations, Navy leadership elected to support and promote Rear Admiral Waters, reinforcing the
apparent disdain that Navy leadership has for service members’ First Amendment rights. Since being
promoted to a new command position of considerable trust and prominence, Rear Admiral Waters
has been party to additional abuses, and is now the subject of an internal Navy complaint for new
violations of service member’s First Amendment rights committed as recently as June 2024. (Encl 1)

As the Director, Military Personnel Plans and Policies (OPNAV N13) from April 2021 to
March of 2024, Rear Admiral Waters, worked directly for Vice Admiral John B. Nowell (OPNAV
N1). In this role, he oversaw the OPNAV N131 Religious Accommodation Review Team. Under
Case 4:21-cv-01236-O0 Document 298 Filed 07/16/24 Page 2of6 PagelD 8351

Rear Admiral Waters’ watch, the OPNAV N131 Religious Accommodation Review Team developed
and executed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to issue a template denial to each religious
accommodation request submitted by Navy sailors without doing the individualized review required
by law and military regulation.

While Vice Admiral Nowell was the one signing final disapprovals on each religious
accommodation requested, it was Rear Admiral Waters who was most closely involved in leading the
Religious Accommodation Review Team, and through whom he prepared each disapproval
recommendation for Vice Admiral Nowell. The evidence provided to this Court demonstrated that
the standardized religious accommodation denials passed through Rear Admiral Waters’ office
multiple times before ultimately being finalized by both Vice Admiral Nowell and Admiral Gilday.
The SOP provided to the court shows Rear Admiral Waters’ personal office code (N13) listed
approximately 10 separate times. His name, listed as “J. P. Waters,” is also clearly shown in both
Step 33 and Step 39 of the SOP, as demonstrated in the court documents. (Encl 4)

Rear Admiral James P. Waters contributed significantly to a pattern of disregard for the law,
for service members’ rights, and for the U.S. Constitution. This entire episode has been a national
embarrassment for the Navy, contributed to a significant loss of trust with the American people, and
compounded the military recruiting crisis. Rather than hold Rear Admiral Waters accountable for his
actions, Navy leadership saw fit to promote him to a new command position. As the new
Commander of Navy Recruiting Command, Rear Admiral Waters, holds a position of significant
interest to American citizens due to its important role in building and maintaining trust for the sake
of recruiting.

As Commander of Navy Recruiting Command, Rear Admiral James Waters maintains a
public-facing X [Twitter] account. Under his authority, this account represents the official Navy
position and narrative concerning recruiting Americans for service in the United States Navy. After
pointing out a number of programmatic failures related to recruiting and rebuilding trust with the
American people, I was blocked from viewing or commenting on any post made by Rear Admiral
James Waters’ Navy Recruiting Command X [Twitter] Account. (Encl 2)

As one of the People and a citizen of the United States, I have a right to freely express my
views, particularly ones that relate to the running of our government, its executive branch agencies,
and its military departments. The action to block me, taken under the color of law, and within the
authority of an executive branch agency, deprived me of my right to free speech, which I retain as
one of the People, and which is explicitly protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Rear Admiral James Waters violated the law as promulgated in 42 U.S.C. § 1983, deprived me of my
inalienable Constitutional rights under the First Amendment, and, in so doing, violated his own oath
to the Constitution.

The @USNRecruiter X [Twitter] account is not Rear Admiral Waters’ private account.
Rather, it is an official government account under his control with which he promulgates Navy
narratives, and encourages the public to interact with the page. I am a member of the public, and,
because there can be no military exclusion for constitutional protections, I retain the right to free
speech as one of the People. Through use of frequent official messaging, Rear Admiral Waters
develops and implements a narrative to sway the opinion of the American people. Due to the
violation of my First Amendment rights, I no longer have the capability to freely respond nor to
exercise my rights related to these narratives.
Case 4:21-cv-01236-O Document 298 Filed 07/16/24 Page 3of6 PagelD 8352

As confirmed by the Supreme Court case O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, 601 U.S._(2024), the
deprivation of a citizen’s First Amendment rights from a government-controlled social media
account is not permitted under law. Therefore, in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Rear Admiral
James Waters can be held liable in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceedings for
redress.

Navy leadership has deliberately chosen not to correct their strategic blunders over the
COVID-19 mandates, nor put any real efforts into ending First Amendment violations perpetrated
across the Navy. These decisions, and the decision to continue to promote Rear Admiral Waters in
spite of his abuses and usurpations, have only served to reinforce our senior leaders’ disregard for
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. These
decisions have enabled Rear Admiral Waters to go on to commit additional violations of service
member’s First Amendment rights (as seen in Encl 1), Rear Admiral Waters has demonstrated a
pattern of constitutional violations. Rather than deter these actions, Navy leadership has elected to
support and promote him.

Navy leadership has also demonstrated a pattern of First Amendment violations, a disdain for
the rights of service members, and contempt for the rulings of this Court. Despite what they say in
Court, the evidence provided in Enclosures land 2 demonstrate ongoing violations of the First
Amendment by parties involved in the very action before this Court. This case is still ripe for action,
because the harms to class members are still ongoing. Defendants and their agents are apparently not
ready for a settlement because they are not done causing harm.

Administrative Records

The repair of harms is not adequate because it only forces the Navy to correct records that
fall within a very narrowly defined category. Significant harms were perpetrated that fall outside the
definition detailed in the settlement. Service members were given poor evaluations, but many were
not given “significant problems” marks that would elevate the evaluation to the category of adverse
evaluation. These poor evaluations derailed careers by ensuring that sailors who were victims of
these actions would not be selected for promotion. In addition to the moral injury inflicted on these
sailors by Navy leadership, the sailors they targeted were denied promotion opportunities, potentially
costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars-worth of additional retirement pay as a result of
failing to obtain rightly-earned advancements in rank.

Service members who failed to be rightly promoted are not being granted special promotion
boards to address the harms done. Correcting the record cannot reverse time and give these sailors a
fair shot at promotion when their records were reviewed by promotion boards in 2022, 2023, and
early 2024. Only by convening a special promotion board for impacted class members could these
harms actually be repaired. There is, however, no provision in the settlement for granting special
promotion boards to class members despite it being the proper way to provide prospective relief.

Other actions, such as being relieved from leadership positions, cannot be corrected or
undone by a note in an administrative record. The sailors who were given menial labor outside their
normal duties, who were verbally and psychologically abused, and who suffered severe mental
health crises, will not be made whole because a note was made in their personnel file.
Case 4:21-cv-01236-O Document 298 Filed 07/16/24 Page4of6 PagelD 8353

For class members who have already retired or otherwise left the Naval Service, correcting
their record provides absolutely no tangible benefit, and cannot repair the harms done to them.

Monetary Damages

Rigidly holding the class to the original complaint does an injustice to class members and the
case should be expanded to include retrospective relief. The settlement does not compensate class
members in any way whatsoever, despite many class members enduring significant financial
hardship, medical complications, and mental health problems as a result of defendants’ actions.

Many reservist class members were barred from performing their drill periods and lost a
source of income that they had previously relied on before the mandate. A number of class members
had bonuses wrongfully recouped. All appeals to Defendants and their agents to reverse these bonus
recoupments have fallen on deaf ears, A significant number of class members have incurred separate
legal fees for actions caused by the Defendants, but only Class Counsel is being offered legal fees as
part of this settlement. Class members have suffered significant physical harms as a result of the
stress caused by Defendants’ actions including developing ulcers, struggling with mental health,
thoughts of suicide, and other significant problems. This proposed settlement does nothing to make
amends for the physical harm resulting from Defendants’ actions.

In accordance with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Zanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U.S._(2020),
violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act permit litigants to seek monetary damages
against federal officials, yet Class Counsel has not sought damages on behalf of class members. The
value of the possible damages can be estimated using the 28 June 2024 judgement from a federal
district court in the case of Benton v BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

Tanja Benton was a Biostatistical research scientist working for BlueCross BlueShield of
Tennessee when her company mandated that she received the COVID-19 injection. She filed a
religious accommodation request which her company denied and ultimately fired her. At trial
Benton was awarded over $687,000 by a jury of her peers for her company’s violations of her
religious freedom rights, $500,000 of which was for punitive damages. (Encl 5)

Based on punitive damages alone, the Navy lawsuit with over 4,000 class members could be
worth a total of $2 Billion. If this seems like a great deal of money, bear in mind that this amount is
just about 1% of the total amount of aid provided to Ukraine so far. It is likely that only significant
punitive damages could make many class members whole from all the physical, mental, and
financial harms inflicted by the Defendants. A fund must be established, paid for by the Defendants,
that permits class members to make claims for damages incurred. This settlement, however, makes
no attempt to make class members whole, nor does it provide monetary damages of any kind.

Required Navy Actions

Under the terms of this settlement, the Navy is required to display a message on its website
for one year that states, in part, that “The United States Navy supports diverse expressive activities,
to include religious expression, and recognizes that through inclusion we are a better military and
stronger nation for it.” In light of their ongoing violations of the First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution (as detailed in Enclosure 1), and their actions both in rejecting my own diverse
Case 4:21-cv-01236-O Document 298 Filed 07/16/24 Page5of6 PagelD 8354

expressive activities and in excluding me from public discourse, each of these Navy assertions
appear to be proven false.

The Navy has committed to posting a training presentation on its website for three years that
teaches the importance of accommodating religious practices. However, service officials have not
committed to requiring any Navy leaders to actually take this training, Even the individuals most
responsible for violating class members’ rights (including Rear Admiral Waters) are not required to
take this training.

In light of the ongoing violations of the First Amendment, these gestures are meaningless at
best, and at worst, they are permitting the Defendants to get away with further projecting false
narratives.

Fairness Hearing
I will not be able to appear at the Fairness Hearing. Please consider this objection in its

entirety in making a ruling both on this settlement and on the need to continue this case that has
become so critical to Military Jurisprudence related to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

y —~ “7° Date: 3 July 2024
#Y Robert A. Green Jr.


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