Freedom’s freeloaders

During our visit to Yale for Parents’ Weekend I posted Friday’s Yale Daily News story about the protest and boycott of the Navy Judge Advocate General recruiter who visited the law school last week. Several points about the story interested me and I hope to return to the subject shortly. Today’s Yale Daily News reports a related story: “Professors prepare to sue.”
According to the story, “At least half of Yale Law School’s professors will soon file a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense with respect to the military’s campus-recruiting policies, administrators and law professors said Sunday. The suit will center on the 1995 Solomon Amendment, which requires all colleges and universities receiving federal funding to allow military recruiters on campus. Until recently, many American law schools, including Yale, had banned recruiters because the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on homosexuality violates the schools’ nondiscrimination clauses.”
The law professors’ issue here is with the law of the land — not, as the story later suggests, with the Defense Department — although the basis of the professors’ suit would almost certainly be the claim that the Solomon Amendment is unconstitutional.
On Saturday evening we had a delightful dinner with Little Trunk’s classmate James Kirchick and his parents. Mr. Kirchick mentioned that his biweekly Yale Daily News column will be devoted to this subject when it appears on Wednesday, and I hope it will provide an excuse to return to this topic if we do not do so earlier.
UPDATE: Yesterday Howard Bashman linked to this Star-Ledger report on a lawsuit brought in New Jersey federal court along these lines by a coalition of law professors and students: “Law students sue over Pentagon access.”
UPDATE 2: Today Bashman linked to a Harvard Crimson article with an account of a teach-in on the issue. (Both updates courtesy of How Appealing.)

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