Vermont Law Schools Digs In
Vermont's only law school is refusing to give in to demands it allow military recruiters on campus even though it has meant the loss of $500,000 a year in federal grants.
The Vermont Law School is one of three law schools whose federal funding has been cancelled because over opposition to 'don't ask, don't tell', the Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly.
"The government is trying to use its force to prohibit independent institutions from speaking up on behalf of individuals who are being discriminated against based on their sexual preference," Jeff Shields, the school's president told the Free Press newspaper.
I think that I'm gonna send a check to the school.
[ October 25, 2005, 02:47 PM: Message edited by: theodoresdaddy ]
Full Version: Law School Digs In On Gay Military Ban
As The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today, there is no First Amendment issue at stake here. An excellent decision filled with common sense to boot. Kudos to SCOTUS! 
[ March 06, 2006, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]
[ March 06, 2006, 02:24 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]
Unfortunate decision today, but I commend those schools for taking a stance for our rights.
Good! Then there should be absolutely no First Amendment issues when those who protest end up shouting down the recruiters. God, I love America!
Yabut:
A Victory For Military Recruiters
A Victory For Military Recruiters
QUOTE
Schools Must Give Access Despite Objection to Policy On Gays, Justices Say
By Fred Barbash and Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Page A01
....
So thorough was the court's rejection of FAIR's arguments that it ruled Congress could have achieved equal access not only indirectly, by threatening a funding cutoff, but also directly, through legislation based on its constitutional power to raise military forces. In fact, the court suggested in passing, even colleges and universities that do not receive any federal funding could be compelled by Congress to allow military recruiters.
\"Congress's power in this area is broad and sweeping,\" Roberts wrote, \"and there is no dispute in this cases that it includes the authority to require campus access to military recruiters.\"
By Fred Barbash and Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Page A01
....
So thorough was the court's rejection of FAIR's arguments that it ruled Congress could have achieved equal access not only indirectly, by threatening a funding cutoff, but also directly, through legislation based on its constitutional power to raise military forces. In fact, the court suggested in passing, even colleges and universities that do not receive any federal funding could be compelled by Congress to allow military recruiters.
\"Congress's power in this area is broad and sweeping,\" Roberts wrote, \"and there is no dispute in this cases that it includes the authority to require campus access to military recruiters.\"
When is recruiting season?
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Illini_fan:
Unfortunate decision today, but I commend those schools for taking a stance for our rights.
It is not an unfortunate decision when it is the correct one.Unfortunate decision today, but I commend those schools for taking a stance for our rights.
From Inside Higher Education's review of reaction to the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in Rumsfeld v. FAIR:
QUOTE
Other legal experts questioned whether the law schools and professors who challenged the Solomon Amendment had done so in a way best designed to achieve their ultimate goal. John Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University, noted that the court had roundly rejected the views of both FAIR and of groups of constitutional scholars from leading universities that had filed briefs challenging Solomon.
\"One interesting part of today’s ruling,\" Banzhaf wrote in an e-mail message, \"is how so many nationally known law professors at top law schools like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia (and my own law school) could have been so very wrong in putting together this lawsuit to challenge the Solomon amendment, and in asserting that the statute violated the First Amendment under no less that four different constitutional theories. Every single justice who participated--liberal, conservative, and middle of the road--ruled without exception that all of the legal theories they advanced were without merit.\"
The professors may just have been wrong from a legal standpoint, Banzhaf wrote--but it is even worse, he suggested, if they proceeded with the case because they put their political views, \"based upon their concerns about the underlying interests of gays or their desire to control access to their campus,\" ahead of their legal judgment.
\"When all of their predictions turn out to be so wrong, it only leads credence to the arguments that we law professors live in ivory towers oblivious to the real world, or that our publicly expressed opinions are
based more on liberal guilt than hard-nosed meaningful real-world analysis,\" he said.
It's still unfortunate that they put together a poor case. I still comend them on putting forth the effort to try an make us equal.
QUOTE
Illini_fan:
It's still unfortunate that they put together a poor case. I still comend them on putting forth the effort to try an make us equal.
I don't think the case was that bad--the problem was that the prior first amendment precedents were not favorable to the plaintiffs' position to begin with.It's still unfortunate that they put together a poor case. I still comend them on putting forth the effort to try an make us equal.
Also, in fairness to the members of legal academia, the above article makes it seem like there was a unified, concerted effort among the faculties of the elite law schools to combat the Solomon Amendment. That certainly was not the case. The were different plaintiff groups here, and the main group was made up of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights ("FAIR"), a consortium of the faculties of 36 law schools, most of which--while I'm sure great educationally--would not be considered the vanguard institutions of legal education in America (though with a few exceptions). And even among the schools whose faculty voted to become members of FAIR, the decision to do so was rarely unanimous. Other than FAIR, Yale and UPenn also had separate suits with different legal theories tailored to the specifics of those situations (e.g. Penn had the novel theory of kicking all employment recruiters off campus in an effort to conform to the law, which the Court eventually rejected).
As I noted on the other thread, I did some work at my law school to get our faculty involved in the Solomon litigation, and there was great reluctance among many members of the faculty to directly get involved as a named plaintiff. Instead, like many other faculties, they wrote an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief. And this was at a very prestigious law school. So I don't think the failure here sends any great overrarching message about law school faculties living in ivory towers (though possibly true), or that their legal skill or common sense was being thwarted by liberal bias. They took a shot at overturning a regulation they thought was unconstitutional and failed. So it's definitely something to be commended, if only for the facts that it demonstrated to students a commitment to equality and forced the Supreme Court to provide further guidance within a fuzzy area of first amendment jurisprudence (academic freedom).
I've been in contact with several of the faculty members who were involved in the litigation, as well as lawyers from the firm Heller Ehrman who provided early assistance. They pretty much knew the odds here for a win weren't great. Not just because of controlling authority of cases, but also because of the historical deference the Supreme Court has given to the military's judgment, particularly during wartime--this deference was critical in the Michigan affirmative action cases from a few years ago, as well as Korematsu, the awful case upholding Asian internment camps during WWII.
That said, I really thought the law schools were on to something with the first amendment associational issues here. The Boy Scouts v. Dale case from a couple of years ago was a big loss for gay rights, but I thought it might ironically help the law schools here.
Hopefully Dont Ask Don't Tell will be rescinded soon, and this will all become moot.
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