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Court upholds campus military recruiting
By GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
03/06/06 "Seattle
Post-Intelligencer" -- -- WASHINGTON -- The
Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that colleges that accept
federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite
university objections to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell"
policy on gays.
Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and their
professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with
military recruiters or promote their campus appearances.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said that the
campus visits are an effective military recruiting tool.
"A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a
law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law
school considers the recruiter's message," he wrote.
Law schools had become the latest battleground over the "don't ask,
don't tell" policy allowing gay men and women to serve in the
military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.
Many universities forbid the participation of recruiters from public
agencies and private companies that have discriminatory policies.
The ruling was announced on a day that the court was jammed with
visitors from the military, all dressed in uniform. Justices heard
arguments in the case in December, and signaled then that they were
concerned about hindering a Defense Department need to fill its
ranks when the nation is at war.
"This is an important victory for the military and ultimately for
our national security," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the
American Center for Law and Justice.
The court's decision upholds a law that requires colleges that take
federal money to accommodate recruiters.
College leaders have said they could not afford to lose federal
help, some $35 billion a year.
Roberts, writing his third decision since joining the court last
fall, said there are other less drastic options for protesting the
policy. "Students and faculty are free to associate to voice their
disapproval of the military's message," he wrote.
"Recruiters are, by definition, outsiders who come onto campus for
the limited purpose of trying to hire students - not to become
members of the school's expressive association," he wrote.
The federal law, known as the Solomon Amendment after its first
congressional sponsor, mandates that universities give the military
the same access as other recruiters or forfeit federal money.
Roberts filed the only opinion, which was joined by every justice
but Samuel Alito. Alito did not participate because he was not on
the bench when the case was argued.
"The Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor
requires them to say anything," Roberts wrote.
The case is Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights,
04-1152.
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