Yale Sues DOD over Recruiters Refusal to Sign Anti-Discrimination Pledge

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http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/17/yale.lawsuit.ap/index.html

Faculty members at Yale University's law school sued Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over a federal policy requiring the school to give the military full access to recruit on campus.

The faculty members say the policy violates the First Amendment, arguing that because the military won't sign an anti-discrimination pledge, Yale should not have to provide access to its student career development office.

Many prominent law schools, including Yale, require employers wishing to use the school's career office to sign a nondiscrimination pledge. The military, which has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays and lesbians, did not sign the pledge.
"What the military is trying to do by demanding that we actively assist them in their recruiting efforts here is draft us in their war against gays and lesbians," said Robert Burt, one of 44 faculty members represented in the lawsuit filed Thursday.

Under a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment, the government threatened to withhold $300 million in research funding if the university did not allow military recruiters access to the career office.

Yale temporarily suspended the anti-discrimination pledge policy last year, granting the military access. Other schools, such as Harvard and Stanford, also capitulated or made exceptions to anti-discrimination policies to avoid losing aid.

Public schools down to the secondary level are required to give the same access with the same threat of loss of funding under the worthless 'Leave No Child Behind Act". Hope Yale wins.

The military doesn't want equal access. They want total acess, more than most other college and employer recruiters are allowed. In the public schools they get their own seperate visit days. Complete brainwashing presence. Not to be trusted.

[bluestateguy]

1. The legal case

I oppose the military ban on gays and I hope that the next Democratic president will walk into the Oval Office on Inauguration Day consign the ban to oblivion and invite homophobes who don't like it to submit their resignations.

Still, the legal case may not be so simple. If Yale, as a private univeristy wants to have that policy that is their business, but if they want federal funding their are rules they must follow. Now I think the rule mandating that schools open their doors to the military as a condition for federal funding is stupid, but as long as the rule is applied uniformily, it is constitutional, seeing as how the ban on gays in the military has been ruled constitutonal.

It sucks, but I don't think Yale has much of a legal leg to stand on.

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2. What about unequal access?

Can every interest group get the same access that the military does?
What about the Friends Society? Do they have the same access? I doubt it.

In our non-military society, should the military get more access? Or less?

I don't understand why the military gets the largest chunk of our tax dollars. It's not the only institution in town. There's lot's more that we do in this country that makes the world go round.

Why should the schools aid in recruitment? Why can't the military get along without them? Kids are there,that's why. Our impressionable children. Keep their mitts off of 'em!

Make your best case for the kids.

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. I agree in part

I think your assessment is right, I just don't see why the military should be barred. They are still OUR military.