Tyson Manker

The Institute is a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to the constitutional rights of American servicemembers and veterans, launched in October 2026. I no longer take private clients — my legal work runs through the Institute.

The Institute publishes the Reading Room: 305,391 decisions of the military records-correction boards, summarized, searchable, and free to anyone.

Representation before the military Discharge Review Boards for veterans seeking a discharge upgrade — reviewing records, developing arguments based on the evidence, preparing the petition, and presenting the case with the individual circumstances supporting relief.

Representation before the military-record correction boards for veterans seeking correction of errors or injustices in their service records. This includes discharge upgrades, as well as missing or incorrect records, medals, service campaigns, education received, and any other change to an individual's military records.

Effective representation involves more than completing a DoD form application. The work includes reviewing service records, or helping to obtain them, identifying legal and procedural issues, and presenting supporting evidence along with legal arguments — including medical evidence and mitigating circumstances involving PTSD, traumatic brain injury, MST and other conditions.

Alongside my practice I write and conduct independent research. These are the questions I keep returning to.

A study of military discharge classifications, veterans’ rights, and the institutions charged with reviewing and correcting military records.

An inquiry into the implementation of post-deployment health screening, veterans’ accounts of missing assessments, and the treatment of those issues in administrative decisions. see 10 U.S.C. § 1074f

A book project about social cohesion, democratic stability, and the conditions that allow people to sustain a shared political life.

I was the named plaintiff in Manker v. Del Toro, a nationwide class action that requires the Navy to reconsider thousands of discharge-upgrade denials issued between 2012 and 2022. I am also at work on a book, One Nation, Indivisible.