For Immediate Release						February 5, 1996
 
Constitutionality of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy Discussed in Lawrence
Lecture
 
 
	APPLETON, WIS. - As attorney for Richard Richenberg, who was discharged
from the U.S. Air Force last December for being gay, Thomas Kayser believes
President Clinton's military policy toward homosexuals violates the U.S.
Constitution.  Kayser will discuss the case and how it impacts the broad issue
of Clinton's policy in a Lawrence University Main Hall Forum Thursday, February
15.  His address, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," will be held at 4:15 p.m. in
Youngchild Hall, Room 161.  The event is free and open to the public.
	Calling the issue a "defining moment for the independent Federal
judiciary," Kayser's case is one of only a handful nationally that is currently
testing Clinton's policy.  Richenberg, a captain stationed at Offutt Air Force
Base near Omaha, Neb., originally informed his commander in 1993 that he was
gay.  After 10 years on active duty, he was discharged from the military
shortly after Christmas, 1995.  After the U.S. District Court in Nebraska
allowed the discharge to stand, Kayser filed an appeal to the U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.  The case is expected to be heard in
early April in St. Louis.  Two similar cases, one in Virginia and one in New
York, have already been argued in Circuit Court of Appeals.  Kayser believes
the policy ultimately will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.       
	A 1958 graduate of Lawrence, Kayser spent eight years on active duty in
the U.S. Air Force and 16 years in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, retiring in
1983 as a lieutenant colonel.  He joined Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi law
firm in 1966 and currently serves as a managing partner from the firm's
Minneapolis office. 


Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 414/832-6590