ACLU Expresses Disappointment Over Supreme Court Ruling in Military Recruitment Case

Posted on March 8, 2006

The ACLU are expressing disappointment over the recent unanimous ruling that colleges recieving Federal funding must allow military recruiters on their campus.

The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed disappointment over a Supreme Court ruling that upholds a federal law requiring colleges to allow military recruiters on campus or else lose out on federal funding. The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, Rumsfeld v. FAIR, arguing 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.

The following quote can be attributed to ACLU Legal Director Steven R. Shapiro.

“We disagree with the Court’s decision today in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Universities should not be punished by the loss of their federal funding merely because they apply the same non-discrimination policies to the military that they apply to every other employer that seeks to recruit on campus.”

Jeff Goldstein sums up my thoughts very elequently.

Of course, this argument was always based on the dubious idea that open sexuality was promoted by the military to the exclusion of gays and lesbians.

For what it’s worth, I am appalled by anyone in the military actively hunting out gays and lesbians in order to have them discharged, and I find that in such cases, the military is engaging in discriminatory actions that violate civil rights. But attempting to punish the entire military—while demanding the right to federal funds that are, at base, protected by that very military—is equally appalling. And worse, it promotes an idea of free speech that welcomes only that free speech that meets previous ideological vetting.

Furthermore, the military does not discriminate on what Americans they protect when they put their very life on the line to defend their freedom to protest them. If you want Federal funding, deal with the strings that are attached.