Philosophizing disgrace

In 1995 Congress enacted the Solomon Amendment requiring universities to treat military recruiters like other prospective employers on campus as a condition of the universities’ receipt of federal funds. Last year the Forum for Institutional and Academic Rights (“FAIR”) brought a lawsuit to enjoin the government from enforcing the Solomon Amendment. I compared the merits of FAIR’s lawsuit to the merits of the obesity lawsuits — “slim to none” — in “Yale vs. U.S. Military, Round 2.”
Today a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered that enforcement of the Solomon Amendment be preliminarily enjoined in a lengthy 2-1 decision; the court’s opinion is FAIR v. Rumsfeld. The New York Times reports on the decision in “Court allows universities to bar military recruiters.”
As my column of last year suggests, I think the Third Circuit decision is absurd. It deserves much further analysis and comment; I intend to return to the subject when I have had time to read the court’s decision in its entirety.