The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the Solomon Amendment, a law requiring universities to allow military recruiters to recruit on campus as they would any other potential employer (see ruling here). It was yet another 8-0 decision (Alito did not participate) in a relatively controversial case, which at least so far seems to be the story of the Roberts court. The decision is the correct one, I think. Obviously I am all for condemning the military for its anti-gay policies and have done so many times. But that doesn't mean you can prevent them from recruiting on campuses.
The arguments of FAIR, the group that formed among law schools to fight for such exclusion, were simply weak. They tried to argue that allowing military recruiters on campus violated their first amendment rights because it amounted to compelled speech and expression on the part of the faculty. That's nonsense and the Justices rightly saw through it. Those at the colleges are entirely free to speak out against such recruitment, protest the recruiters when they arrive, condemn the military if they wish, but the argument that allowing other people to speak on campus amounts to compelled speech by those on campus is quite silly.
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The decision was definitely the correct one. Last night on NPR they played a clip from some spokesperson throwing a hissy fit about how schools should be allowed to ban military personel from campuses but still receive federal funding because federal dollars have an effect on all sorts of different departments. Um, duh?
Perhaps the funniest response though was from Bill "I'm A Jackass" O'Reilly. He praised the decision, of course, but repeatedly reffered to the supreme court as 'The liberal supreme court.' That's an exact quote, too. The liberal supreme court. Okiedokie then.
I'm sorry that you even heard a sound clip from Bill O'Reilly.
This case seems pretty open and shut to me.
I agree with you regarding the military's stance on gays, however, I don't understand why campus recruitment is so important to the military.
Consider: anyone who can get into college (to say nothing of law school) certainly can find information about the military independently of any campus-sanctioned recruiting event.
Yes and no... Try finding information about your rank, vacation, and benefits -- as well as probable station location as a JAG Officer. It doesn't easily exist.
What the recruiters in this case are asking for is the same access to companies that other employers have -- so they can recruit them the same as various law firms, etc.
I have a good friend who currently is in USAF Medical as a psychologist. Even though he served in the USMC as an enlisted grunt before starting college, he never considered the military post graduate. Without a recruiter there to give him better information -- he wouldn't have.
What is the reson for the US military policy on gays?
Roman wrote:
Bigotry, of course. Oh, they claim that it's really about preserving "unit cohesion" and the esprit de corps, but the mere fact that they stop throwing gays out of the military during wartime shows that they don't really mean it. They made the exact same arguments against integrating white and black soldiers together in WW2; they were wrong then and they're wrong now. Other militaries around the world, including Britain, have no problem with gay soldiers serving openly in combat.
I wonder how they solve the problem of hetero- and homosexual men sharing, I don't know, showers. It is the same as if women and men were to share them, and I suppose at least one of the sexes would object.
If you've ever taken a shower with a group of other males, as in high school gym class for example, you have almost certainly been in the shower with at least one gay man. The fact that you probably have no idea who it is and weren't the least bit traumatized by it suggests that it's really not a big deal.
Ed,
if a woman is being peeped at and she doesn't know it, she's not upset either. But that's no excuse for peeping, is it?
I'm just trying to point out that gay soldiers are somewhat of a logistical problem for the army.