Merlin1047
Senior Member
Here we have taxpayer supported institutions which accept federal funds. Now somehow they rationalize that they can bar military recruiters and yet continue to receive federal money. The suit has been upheld in a 2 to 1 decision by the court. In its ruling, the court cited the fact that the Supreme Court had ruled that the Boy Scouts had a right to ban homosexuals from being Scout Masters.
This is nothing more than a bald-faced attempt by both these universities and this court to force their pro-homosexual agenda on the military. It is high time that American taxpayers demand that our money be spent on better endeavors than pouring it down the endless ratholes of liberal universities who then spit on the flag.
NYU has a right to pursue it's pro-homosexual, anti-military policy. It just doesn't have the right to take my tax money while they do that.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...ense_dept_sued_on_college_recruitment?mode=PF
US Defense Dept. sued on college recruitment
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff, 9/20/2003
A nationwide group of law professors, law schools, and students filed suit yesterday against the US Department of Defense and other government agencies, charging them with violating the First Amendment by forcing law schools to allow military recruiters on campus.
The suit, led by Kent Greenfield, a Boston college law professor (may he rot in hell), marks the first widespread effort to challenge the Defense Department, which last year began threatening to yank virtually all federal funds from colleges whose law schools continued to bar military recruiters from on-campus job interviews.
Many law schools, including Harvard, Boston College, and Boston University , had previously barred recruiters from campus because the ban on gays serving openly in the military conflicted with their nondiscrimination rules.
Faced with the possibility of losing hundreds of millions of dollars, almost all American law schools backed down from their bans, including Harvard, BU, BC, Yale, Columbia, and New York University. Several university leaders said they regretted the switch, but had no choice if they wanted to preserve their federal research funding.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that the legislation underlying the Defense Department's crackdown, a law passed in 1994 called the Solomon Amendment, is riddled with flaws.
"It's not the American way to condition government benefits on whether you agree with the government," said Greenfield, who founded the organization leading the suit. "The Solomon Amendment was passed to send the message that academic institutions were being too liberal. They are using this law to reach into the core of our educational philosophy and change it, and that's contrary to the First Amendment."
Boston College itself is not a party to the suit.
In order to take up this fight, Greenfield recently formed the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, an organization of law schools and other academic institutions. It filed the suit along with the Society of American Law Teachers, a liberal association of some 800 law professors. Also named are two student groups -- one at Boston College Law School, the other at Rutgers University School of Law -- and three Rutgers law students.
Greenfield's group, FAIR, is not releasing the names of member schools, which he describes as nationwide and "not in the hundreds, but not tiny either." He said anonymity is important to protect law schools from retribution.
Other members of the group's board are legal scholars from such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, NYU, and the University of Southern California. Local law schools contacted said that they were not involved in the suit.
"Boston College is in full compliance with the Solomon Amendment and is not party to this lawsuit," said BC spokesman Jack Dunn in a statement. "Neither Boston College nor Boston College Law School is a member of FAIR."
In response to an inquiry from the Globe, the Harvard Law School dean, Elena Kagan, also issued a statement.
"Harvard Law School is not a member of this organization, but I share its commitment to nondiscrimination," she said. "I look forward to the day when all Americans -- regardless of sexual orientation -- can serve their country with honor and distinction."
Boston University and Columbia also said they were not a part of FAIR or the lawsuit, while several other law schools did not return calls.
The suit names Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and the secretaries of education, labor, health and human services, transportation, and homeland security. It was filed in US District Court in New Jersey, where Judge John C. Lifland held a hearing yesterday in response to an emergency request from the plaintiffs' lawyer for a restraining order against the Solomon Amendment, as the fall recruiting season kicks into high gear on campuses across the country.
Lifland gave the government a week to respond. Phone and e-mail messages to the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice were not returned yesterday.
For many years, law schools had treated military recruiters differently from private-sector recruiters because the organization that accredits law schools has a nondiscrimination policy that includes gays and lesbians. Often, the rules amounted to a technicality, as recruiters were allowed if invited by a student group or if they conducted interviews in an alternate location.
In 2000, the Defense Department added new teeth to the Solomon Amendment, and last year began enforcing it in earnest, writing to schools telling them they were out of compliance with the law and faced a loss of funds if they did not allow military recruiters open access to their students.
"I think it's a serious and very weighty lawsuit," said constitutional law specialist Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School.
He said the Supreme Court has ruled on a number of occasions that the government can withhold funds from an activity it disapproves, but can't deny those funds to an entire organization.
"This law is an attempt to take the principle that he who pays the piper calls the tune much further than the courts have generally allowed," said Tribe.
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at [email protected].
==================================================
Hopefully this will be appealed and overturned. Then these ivory tower elitists can decide if they are willing to let the forces of the free market determine the fate of their university sans taxpayer money or if they are, as I suspect, just another group of money-grubbing whores.
This is nothing more than a bald-faced attempt by both these universities and this court to force their pro-homosexual agenda on the military. It is high time that American taxpayers demand that our money be spent on better endeavors than pouring it down the endless ratholes of liberal universities who then spit on the flag.
NYU has a right to pursue it's pro-homosexual, anti-military policy. It just doesn't have the right to take my tax money while they do that.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/ar...ense_dept_sued_on_college_recruitment?mode=PF
US Defense Dept. sued on college recruitment
By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff, 9/20/2003
A nationwide group of law professors, law schools, and students filed suit yesterday against the US Department of Defense and other government agencies, charging them with violating the First Amendment by forcing law schools to allow military recruiters on campus.
The suit, led by Kent Greenfield, a Boston college law professor (may he rot in hell), marks the first widespread effort to challenge the Defense Department, which last year began threatening to yank virtually all federal funds from colleges whose law schools continued to bar military recruiters from on-campus job interviews.
Many law schools, including Harvard, Boston College, and Boston University , had previously barred recruiters from campus because the ban on gays serving openly in the military conflicted with their nondiscrimination rules.
Faced with the possibility of losing hundreds of millions of dollars, almost all American law schools backed down from their bans, including Harvard, BU, BC, Yale, Columbia, and New York University. Several university leaders said they regretted the switch, but had no choice if they wanted to preserve their federal research funding.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say that the legislation underlying the Defense Department's crackdown, a law passed in 1994 called the Solomon Amendment, is riddled with flaws.
"It's not the American way to condition government benefits on whether you agree with the government," said Greenfield, who founded the organization leading the suit. "The Solomon Amendment was passed to send the message that academic institutions were being too liberal. They are using this law to reach into the core of our educational philosophy and change it, and that's contrary to the First Amendment."
Boston College itself is not a party to the suit.
In order to take up this fight, Greenfield recently formed the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, an organization of law schools and other academic institutions. It filed the suit along with the Society of American Law Teachers, a liberal association of some 800 law professors. Also named are two student groups -- one at Boston College Law School, the other at Rutgers University School of Law -- and three Rutgers law students.
Greenfield's group, FAIR, is not releasing the names of member schools, which he describes as nationwide and "not in the hundreds, but not tiny either." He said anonymity is important to protect law schools from retribution.
Other members of the group's board are legal scholars from such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, NYU, and the University of Southern California. Local law schools contacted said that they were not involved in the suit.
"Boston College is in full compliance with the Solomon Amendment and is not party to this lawsuit," said BC spokesman Jack Dunn in a statement. "Neither Boston College nor Boston College Law School is a member of FAIR."
In response to an inquiry from the Globe, the Harvard Law School dean, Elena Kagan, also issued a statement.
"Harvard Law School is not a member of this organization, but I share its commitment to nondiscrimination," she said. "I look forward to the day when all Americans -- regardless of sexual orientation -- can serve their country with honor and distinction."
Boston University and Columbia also said they were not a part of FAIR or the lawsuit, while several other law schools did not return calls.
The suit names Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and the secretaries of education, labor, health and human services, transportation, and homeland security. It was filed in US District Court in New Jersey, where Judge John C. Lifland held a hearing yesterday in response to an emergency request from the plaintiffs' lawyer for a restraining order against the Solomon Amendment, as the fall recruiting season kicks into high gear on campuses across the country.
Lifland gave the government a week to respond. Phone and e-mail messages to the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice were not returned yesterday.
For many years, law schools had treated military recruiters differently from private-sector recruiters because the organization that accredits law schools has a nondiscrimination policy that includes gays and lesbians. Often, the rules amounted to a technicality, as recruiters were allowed if invited by a student group or if they conducted interviews in an alternate location.
In 2000, the Defense Department added new teeth to the Solomon Amendment, and last year began enforcing it in earnest, writing to schools telling them they were out of compliance with the law and faced a loss of funds if they did not allow military recruiters open access to their students.
"I think it's a serious and very weighty lawsuit," said constitutional law specialist Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School.
He said the Supreme Court has ruled on a number of occasions that the government can withhold funds from an activity it disapproves, but can't deny those funds to an entire organization.
"This law is an attempt to take the principle that he who pays the piper calls the tune much further than the courts have generally allowed," said Tribe.
Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at [email protected].
==================================================
Hopefully this will be appealed and overturned. Then these ivory tower elitists can decide if they are willing to let the forces of the free market determine the fate of their university sans taxpayer money or if they are, as I suspect, just another group of money-grubbing whores.
