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Supreme Court Smackdown!
The New York Times ^ | 3/12/06 | Adam Liptak

Posted on 03/12/2006 1:35:00 PM PST by LdSentinal

HUNDREDS of law professors at the nation's finest law schools, representing the all-but-unanimous views of the legal academy, filed a series of briefs last year on one side of a Supreme Court case. On Web sites and in lecture halls, the professors spoke out about the case, which they called a crucial test for gay rights and free speech.

Marshalling their collective intellectual firepower and moral outrage, the professors, from Harvard, Yale and elsewhere, made it sound obvious: Universities should be allowed, they said, to take government money but oppose the military's policies on homosexuality by restricting military recruiting on campus.

On Monday, the best minds in the legal business struck out. The vote was 8-to-0 against them — a shutout, a rout, a humiliation. It is one thing for liberal academics to fail to persuade conservative justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But the law professors did not produce so much as a sympathetic word from liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. (The newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not participate.)

And if the result was not embarrassing enough, there was also the tone of the court's unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In patient cadences, the kind you use in addressing a slightly dull child, the chief justice explained that law students would not assume that their schools supported the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy if they saw military recruiters on campus.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: alito; campus; case; judges; miliary; recruiting; recruitment; roberts; ruling; solomonamendment; supremecourt
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1 posted on 03/12/2006 1:35:05 PM PST by LdSentinal
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To: LdSentinal

8-0

Pretty impressive win in any case before SCOTUS.


2 posted on 03/12/2006 1:37:01 PM PST by BenLurkin (O beautiful for patriot dream - that sees beyond the years)
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To: LdSentinal
"The court did not say which argument it liked less. It rejected both, unanimously."
3 posted on 03/12/2006 1:37:28 PM PST by Hunble
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To: LdSentinal
Marshalling their collective intellectual firepower and moral outrage,

LOL!

Rush has more 'intellectual firepower' in his little finger than they have collectively.

Seesh, what a bunch of morons.

4 posted on 03/12/2006 1:37:34 PM PST by Balding_Eagle (God has blessed Republicans with really stupid enemies.)
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To: LdSentinal
What's the point of excerpting if you don't even post the punchline?

"High school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so," [Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.] wrote. "Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

5 posted on 03/12/2006 1:41:22 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: BenLurkin

"Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In patient cadences, the kind you use in addressing a slightly dull child"

I would have characterized it as "addressing" a spoiled child, one that has been trained by the Court that he can usually get his own way no matter the quality of the legal logic behind his demand.

Maybe times have really changed, but I think the jury still out.


6 posted on 03/12/2006 1:47:00 PM PST by vetsvette (Bring Him Back)
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To: LdSentinal

"The vote was 8-to-0 against them — a shutout, a rout, a humiliation."

It just doesn't get any better than that!


7 posted on 03/12/2006 1:48:07 PM PST by jazusamo (:Gregory was riled while Hume smiled:)
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To: LdSentinal
a crucial test for gay rights and free speech.

Actually it was neither. It was a test of a law passed by Congress.

It has very little to do with gay rights. The schools in question would be trying to keep military recruiters off campus regardless of the DOD homosexual policy.

Last time I checked there isn't any part of the Constitution guaranteeing federal funding for colleges. When the federal government cares to hand out funding they can set policies as they see fit.

8 posted on 03/12/2006 1:49:16 PM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: LdSentinal

""Of them, the only one that seems utterly implausible is that three dozen law schools, 900 law professors, the court of appeals, and a dozen top law firms are all inept at connecting the dots of Supreme Court precedents.""

Utterly implausible? Guess again. The law schools and professors hate the military, period. And the dozen top law firms will say anything you want them to...for a fee.


9 posted on 03/12/2006 1:50:34 PM PST by frankjr
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To: LdSentinal
But the law professors did not produce so much as a sympathetic word from liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. (The newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not participate.)

Image hosting by Photobucket

I'm not altogether convinced that RBG participated, wither.

10 posted on 03/12/2006 1:51:32 PM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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Comment #11 Removed by Moderator

To: martin_fierro

wither = either


12 posted on 03/12/2006 1:51:57 PM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: jazusamo
It just doesn't get any better than that!

Actually..., it does (but won't)! There could have been a pleading for damages as a result of a frivolous lawsuit and the SCOTUS could have REALLY smacked down the whining bedwetter leftest bar!!!

13 posted on 03/12/2006 1:52:14 PM PST by ExSES (the "bottom-line")
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To: Javelina
A lot of the law professors at my school said the knew they'd lose.

I asked my daughter's dogs, and they concurred.

14 posted on 03/12/2006 1:53:52 PM PST by Jeff Chandler (Peace Begins in the Womb)
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To: jazusamo

"The vote was 8-to-0 against them — a shutout, a rout, a humiliation."

It just doesn't get any better than that!



9-0?
Was ginsburg sleeping again??
Hmmm???


15 posted on 03/12/2006 1:53:59 PM PST by danamco
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To: danamco
LOL...You might be right, I thought it because of Alito.
16 posted on 03/12/2006 1:57:50 PM PST by jazusamo (:Gregory was riled while Hume smiled:)
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To: LdSentinal
I laughed out loud the other day when Bill O'Reilly said that the Law Students at Harvard and Yale etc. should ask for their money back when their own teachers can't get it together on the law.
17 posted on 03/12/2006 1:59:00 PM PST by fish hawk (TU)
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To: ExSES
There could have been a pleading for damages as a result of a frivolous lawsuit . . . .

That's pretty tough to accomplish when the SC has to give its permission to hear the case in the first place.

18 posted on 03/12/2006 2:00:24 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: LdSentinal

I bet I got a zit on my ass more important than Yale is now


19 posted on 03/12/2006 2:01:32 PM PST by sure_fine (*not one to over kill the thought process*)
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To: LdSentinal; Dog Gone

Sadly, the same "top law professors" who lost 8 to 0 are still employed...attempting to "educate" young minds about how our Law works.

The reality is that the radicalized law schools of today simply don't understand "The Law."

What they understand is ideology...which is quite different from the law (i.e. written statute) itself.

20 posted on 03/12/2006 2:01:57 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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