| Air Reserve Technicians (ARTs) are Air Force civilian employees who as a requirement of employment must maintain membership in the Air Force Reserve. If an ART is unable to maintain membership in the Air Force Reserve, in most instances, he or she is terminated from their civilian position. This program has existed in the Air Force since the late 1950's, and the continuity that ARTs brought to Reserve units had been a key factor to the later success of the Air Force Reserve. Unfortunately, the dual status of ARTs has always been a problem. They are neither civilian employees nor military members, but a strange hybrid of the two. This has led to significant litigation on the part of ARTs. Over the past few years this litigation has mainly dealt with two issues: ART resistance to a 2007 requirement that they wear military uniforms in their civilian status and whether Federal employment discrimination statutes, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, apply to ARTs. Both of these issues, depending upon how they are decided, could have serious implications to the survival of the ART program.;Regardless of how the courts decide these issues, the argument of this paper is that the ART program should be abolished. The dual nature of the ART program has had a detrimental effect on good order and discipline within the Reserve, and with an ever increasing demand for assistance from the Reserves by the regular Air Force, the Reserve needs to ensure that its people are not only ready to be mobilized, but that they are ready to meet the demands of military service. The solution to this problem is to replace ARTs with Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) personnel. AGR is the best solution because AGRs can provide Reserve units with the same continuity as ARTs, but because AGRs are full-time military personnel, the negative legal problems caused by dual status ARTs are eliminated. |
