Court upholds campus military recruiting law

Posted on March 6, 2006

Back in December the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that it is unconstitutional for Congress to force law schools that object to discrimination against gay people to give the military access to their recruitment programs.

“Through ‘don’t ask, don’t tell, Congress has embraced a policy of discrimination against openly gay lesbian and gay servicemembers. Congress may not force law schools to support or promote this discriminatory point of view,” said Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.

The ACLU brief argues that it is a violation of the Constitutional guarantee of free speech for the government to force itself into a law school’s recruitment program. The brief notes, “These schools feel that the military isn’t a good employer because it discriminates. The government doesn’t get to cut off all funding to the rest of the university because the law schools won’t let the military use their recruitment process to spread its anti-gay message.”

Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Pentagon.

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that universities that get federal funds must allow military recruiters on campus, even if their law schools oppose the Pentagon’s policy prohibiting openly gays and lesbians from serving.

The high court upheld as constitutional a federal law dating back to 1994 that allows the government to withhold money from universities that deny military recruiters the same access to campuses given to other employers.

The ruling was unanimous:

Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law school professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision, which was unanimous.
Law schools had become the latest battleground over the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allowing gay men and women to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Many universities forbid the participation of recruiters from public agencies and private companies that have discriminatory policies.

Roberts, writing his third decision since joining the court, said there are other less drastic options to protest the policy. “A military recruiter’s mere presence on campus does not violate a law school’s right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter’s message,” he wrote.

A very sound ruling! It is a bit suprising that Ginsburg voted with the majority in this. One has to wonder if she was actually awake for the vote.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin
Others: Independent Conservative
Sister Toldjah
SCOTUS Blog
Strata-Sphere

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One Response to “Court upholds campus military recruiting law”

LomaAlta on March 6th, 2006 12:26 pm

Great news.
The greatest problem underlying the radical left domination of academia is, in my opiniion, tenure. It is time to do away with tenure. It does not protect free speech, it prevents it.

School children through high school now have to take performance-bases assessments (read as must pass tests) to pass their classes. I think its time to give their teachers (K – University PhD)the benefits of performance bases assessments and performance based job retention.

Surely university faculty believe in performance based assessments, performance based job retention, and free enterprise. If not, it is time they got a dose of reality. We need more diversity of thought in our universities and this is a sure fire way to get it.