Justices take on military recruiting case

Yahoo, news services ^ | 2 May 2005 | Ann Rostow

[Radix]

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Congress has the right to withhold federal funds from colleges and universities that refuse to allow military recruiters full access to their students.

Last November, a divided three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a coalition of law schools that had challenged the so-called Solomon Amendment. Passed in 1992, and named for New York Rep. Gerald Solomon, the amendment said that no public college or university could bar military recruiters if the institution also wanted to qualify for federal research dollars.

Throughout the Clinton years, an uneasy truce allowed colleges to stick to their principles while turning a blind eye to informal military recruitment on campus. The Army or Navy would meet with students off-site or at special events, for example, but would bypass the campus facilities.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush Administration toughened up, demanding that law schools offer the exact same cooperation to the military as they did to private industry. The Solomon Amendment had been revised by then, and hanging in the balance were not just the federal funds attached to an individual graduate school, but every dime allocated to the parent university as well.

Yale and Harvard, which stood to lose hundreds of millions if they did not start welcoming the recruiters with open arms, had no choice but to capitulate. They did so, but in 2003 they also filed suit to challenge the Solomon Amendment on First Amendment grounds, which the Third Circuit ruling upheld.

"I think it's impossible to say what the Supreme Court's motivation was in taking this case," said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Fund. "But we continue to believe that the Third Circuit decision should stand."

"We acknowledge that the military should have access to the best and the brightest, but that includes gay men and lesbians as well as heterosexuals." Ralls said. "We hope the court will send a strong signal to the military that it can have campus access to every student when its policies value every student." If you'd like to know more, you can find stories related to Justices take on military recruiting case.

[Radix]

Yale and Harvard, which stood to lose hundreds of millions if they did not start welcoming the recruiters.....

Yale, Harvard, and a plethora of other schools.

[A Balrog of Morgoth]

Would anybody be surprised if the five lightweights find enough foreign law to rule against the military in this case?

[jiggyboy]

I really can't see this, fundamentally, as a "free speech issue". If it stands, I can see these colleges taking federal money for specific research projects and siphoning off 50% for whatever pet socialist and/or protected class promotion that they want to, also as a matter of "free speech".

[fooman]

Not only should congress cut these education funds, it should cut judges salaries. CONGRESS spends the money

[Spok]

I would love the SCOTUS to broadly rule that the federal government can't attach strings to funds offered to the states and other institutions-it's how the fed's have overruled the sovereignty of local governments for years, on everything from speed limits to affirmative action. Of course, the doctrine of the double standard may apply, which strains most every judicial holding through the hypocrisy of political correctness, allowing rules to apply or not apply, depending on the partisan result.

[hispanichoosier]

If these colleges had any stones, they'd say, "screw the money" and ban the recruiters. Since they've got no backbone, they want to have it both ways.

[nuke rocketeer]

Ya know, if you take the federal funding, you have to let the feds set some rules. Therre are always strings attached. If you let other federal agencies recruit on campus, you have to let them all.

[SkyPilot]

This was discussed on WABC radio this morning during the "Curtis and Kurby Show".

The Leftist and atheist lawyer, Ron Kurby, kept throwing out the phrases, "Discrimination by the Military", "Prejudice in the Military", "Bigotry in the Military."

The main point is that the US Military operates under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" rule that Clinton insisted upon. It still was not good enough for Homosexual activists, because people who commit homosexual sodomy and/or admit they practice this are are discharged.

The US Military was the pioneer in this nation for ending race based discrimination. It continues this proud tradition to this day. What it "discriminates" against is a social engineering mandate to accept immoral behavior as "good" so gays don't feel so bad about what they do.

The "gay lobby" has been trying for years to seize the moral mantle of the black civil rights movement for years. The difference between that struggle and this one is that Christians came down on the moral struggle of African-Americans who were truly discriminated against, because it was an offense against God's sacred law that all humans were made in His image and have worth. Homosexuality is 180 degrees out of phase with this--it is condemned by God, it is behavior, and it is sin.

But who writes "morality" in our culture today? Judges, that's who. What is the biggest war going on today? The war on the next Supreme Court justices and Chief Justice appointment.

And the MSM and the Left tell us that all they want to do is "ensure fairness" in judicial appointees. Ha.

Their world will fall if they cannot write their own morality through the courts.

[ops33]

The Constitution specifically prohibits the reduction of a Federal judge's salary.

[fooman]

Really? Where?

[ops33]

Article III, Section I.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

[fooman]

during their Continuance New judges get $1. Old judges adjudicate traffic tix.