Why is the defense department handing anti-military radicals the victory they couldn't win in court?
Last month, I expressed dismay that the Defense Department has allowed colleges to flout the Solomon Amendment. That's the Act of Congress that requires schools receiving federal funding to give access to military representatives for recruiting purposes, and to treat military recruiters in the same way they treat all other employment recruiters.
The Defense Department went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to confirm the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, but now seems unwilling to enforce it. Specifically, the Defense Department has taken no action against the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) which, for three years, has allowed near riots by professors and students to drive military recruiters from its job fairs, while non-military recruiters have enjoyed an unimpeded opportunity to meet with students interested in employment.
Fortunately, as I also noted, the Young America’s Foundation has challenged the Defense Department’s preemptive surrender to UCSC and its anti-military radicals. That suit is being prosecuted by the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), an organization that is well known for, among other things, its tireless advocacy in favor of property rights.
William Perry Pendley is the president and chief legal officer of MSLF. In this column, Pendley discusses the facts of the case and expresses his understandable amazement that “after years defending the Solomon Amendment, federal lawyers have now handed radical campuses the way to escape its enforcement.”
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