Dec. 6, 2005 – A coalition of law schools is set to square off against the Pentagon in front of the Supreme Court today in a challenge to a nine-year-old law requiring higher education institutions to grant military recruiters open access to campuses. The case comes via the Third Circuit Court, which last year agreed with the schools that the military?s implicit policy against homosexuals amounts to discrimination and granted them the right to bar recruiters from school grounds.
The lawsuit, Rumsfeld v Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, is a direct challenge to incremental legislation initiated in 1995 that now revokes financial aid and other federal money from colleges that restrict recruiter access on campus.
Known as the Solomon Amendment, the measure underwent several iterations since first introduced by former US Congressman Gerald Solomon (R-New York). The Amendment is opposed by many academic institutions that maintain strict antidiscrimination policies. In addition to campus access, the law demands that schools provide recruiters with requested student contact information and transcript details.
In a statement yesterday, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) derided the military?s "don?t ask, don?t tell" policy toward sexual orientations as both discriminatory and a failure to recruit the country?s "best and brightest."
"Law schools are simply asking the military to adhere to the same rule as every potential employer recruiting on campus: no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," said SLDN director for law and policy Sharra E. Greer.
Law-school students and professors are not the only academics opposed to the Solomon Amendment. In August, the American Association of University Professors filed an amicus brief in the case, charging, in part, that the amendment "uses the funding leverage to coerce universities to abandon protected speech."
"Academic freedom, long protected by the First Amendment, includes faculties? right to evaluate their students based solely on merit and to require that the employers they sponsor do the same," the brief argued. "The Solomon Amendment intrudes upon this exercise of academic self-governance and expertise."
According a 2001 survey by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, more than 80 percent of US higher education institutions give student names and addresses to recruiters upon request. Over half give out further information, like phone numbers, age and major.
Additionally, the study found several instances where the military asked for "non-standard" information, such as race or ethnicity and the student?s current enrollment status, and noted that protected personal information is sometimes asked for and given. The study did not track queries about sexual orientation.
Students may opt to place their information out of the reach of the Solomon Amendment by blocking the release of all personal information to any potential employers, schools or other organizations which might seek access to it. They cannot choose to pull out of the military program alone.
Earlier this year, Massachusetts Congressman Marty Meehan (D) introduced a bill which would repeal the amendment.
