Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights

The supreme court is taking on a rather important case next week, namely Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights. This case is centered on the desire of many law schools to deny military recruiters access to their students. They object to the military's "practice" of don't ask don't tell.

A couple of points, first of all don't ask don't tell is not a practice, it is a law, signed by that great egalitarian Bill Clinton. To change the policy, Congress would have to change the law which they are not going to do. Admittadly the military does not want the law changed and did not want the law in the first place, but its the law so we are all stuck with it.

The second law that is important here is the Solomon Amendment. This says that schools who take federal money can not deny military recruiters access to the campus. This worked for a while, as the schools would let the recruiters on campus but not provide them with support or access to the schools recruiting office (these help students meet with recruiters from potential employers). The military generally met off campus or in some out of the way place.

After 9/11 though, the military needed to recruit more lawyers and thus began to demand access to the recruiting office support which has led us to this point.

I am interested that these same law schools never put restrictions on tobacco companies, or junk bond firms or any other institution that could be deemed socially unacceptable. Of course they had a lot of wealthy alumni in these place who would not give large donations if they had singled out in this fashion.

The Supreme Court should tell the law schools to get over themselves. They suck at the public's tit thus in return the military's recruiters get access. They always have the option of not taking federal money, but they will never do that. They seem to think that they are somehow entitled to public money with public responsibility in return. Hopefully the court will inform them that they are mistaken.