A Long Island attorney is taking the U.S. Navy to federal court, claiming age discrimination after years of bureaucratic delay allegedly blocked her from becoming the first female Navy SEAL officer. In her lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court, Amanda S. Reynolds, 41, accuses military recruiters of negligently delaying her application, allowing her to age out of eligibility before she could attend officer training.
Reynolds, an experienced litigator and fitness enthusiast, began her pursuit of military service back in 2018, when she was 35—well under the Navy’s maximum age of 42 for officer candidates. But despite being “sworn in” at a Brooklyn military office, she claims she was never assigned, deployed, or formally admitted into service.
Her application process, she says, became mired in inaction, moving from state to state, recruiter to recruiter, and never advancing. By the time she was told in late 2023 that she would no longer qualify for Naval Officer Training Command in Rhode Island, it was too late—she would have turned 43 before graduation.
“The opportunity … was kind of taken away from me,” Reynolds told The New York Post. “I would just like the outcome to be determined by the merits instead of by some sort of technicality.”
Far from an unqualified hopeful, Reynolds has spent years preparing herself physically and mentally for the challenge. She is an avid runner, a certified scuba diver, and a long-distance swimmer. In her personal statement to the Navy, she described her goal as a “Viking-like pursuit” to serve—not for symbolism, but for substance.
Reynolds also comes from a family steeped in service. Her grandfather served in the Norwegian Ski Patrol, her uncle was an American WWII pilot, and her brother is an FBI agent. Her desire to join the SEALs, she says, is simply the next chapter in that legacy.
“It was never really about me being a female SEAL,” she explained. “It was just about me being a SEAL who happened to be a woman.”
Court records show that Reynolds experienced additional obstacles. In 2020, while living in Utah, she was arrested for DUI—a charge that was ultimately dismissed in 2023. Despite the dismissal, Reynolds alleges the incident was used against her during later application reviews.
Throughout the process, she claims Navy recruiters pressured her to apply instead to the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG), capitalizing on her legal background rather than her physical training. According to Reynolds, she was repeatedly told that age waivers were “always obtainable”, only to be informed later that she was disqualified due to her age.
“I was really taking all the right steps… but the app was not submitted and unjustifiably delayed,” she said.
The Defense Department officially opened special operations roles to women in 2016, including the Navy SEALs. However, no woman has successfully completed SEAL training to date.
Reynolds is not only contesting her individual exclusion, but also highlighting what she views as a broader issue of institutional gatekeeping—where procedural delays can become effective disqualifiers, especially for older but qualified candidates.
The U.S. Navy declined to comment on the litigation, citing the pending nature of the case.
