Feds gone wild

By Rachel Campbell

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 12:24 PM CST

The City of Brotherly Love ruled against the Solomon Amendment on Monday, deeming it unconstitutional for the federal government to withhold funding for universities that refuse to comply with military recruiting on their campuses.

The New York Times' report on the ruling sums up the smacked-down Amendment nicely: "The 1995 law at issue in the decision, the Solomon Amendment, barred the federal government from disbursing money to colleges and universities that obstruct campus recruiting by the military. As amended and interpreted over the years, the law prohibits disbursements to all parts of a university, including its physics department and medical school, if any of its units, like its law school, make military recruiting even a little more difficult." ("Colleges Can Bar Army Recruiters," Nov. 30) A panel of three Philly federal appeals court judges essentially reversed the Solomon Amendment yesterday on the grounds that the law violated the First Amendment rights of academic institutions. The violation, according to the ruling, forced universities to align themselves with military policies, like discrimination against gays, that they may not agree with.

What surprises me is not that the Solomon Amendment was ruled unconstitutional, but that it existed at all. How is this not coercion? As stated in Sec. 558 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, "No funds available to the Department of Defense (that is, any federal funds) may be provided by grant or contract to any institution of higher education that has a policy of denying, or which effectively prevents, the Secretary of Defense from obtaining for military recruiting purposes - (A) entry to campuses or access to students on campuses; or (B) access to directory information pertaining to students." The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network's Law Library elaborates, "This law ... is targeted at punishing colleges and universities who prevent the military recruiting on campus or the participation of ROTC by the institution or its students." Tony Soprano couldn't have devised a better plan.

The US government now has the options of admitting defeat, requesting a stay on the ruling, requesting a full appeals court to review the ruling, or movin' on up to the Supreme Court. In the interim, however, universities may deny military recruiters their full cooperation without the legally-sanctioned threat of extortion. Oh, good.

Online reporter Rachel Campbell, who has a pledge pin on her uniform, can be reached via email at rachel.campbell@lee.net.

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