A FAIR decision
The Supreme Court, in the case of Rumsfeld v. FAIR, has unanimously reversed the Third Circuit's ruling that the Solomon Amendment is unconstitutional. The Third Circuit had held that requiring colleges and universities to treat military recruiters like all other employer-recruiters as a condition of receiving federal funds, even when they disagree with the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, violates the First Amendment. By an 8-0 vote, the Supreme Court disagreed. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. Justice Alito did not participate. There were no concurring opinions.
Scott has been all over this story since the beginning (see here and here for example). We should also congratulate our friend Dean Polsby of George Mason University Law School, who filed an outstanding amicus brief supporting the government's position.
SCOTT adds: In October 2003, when the case had just been filed in federal court in New Jersey, I first wrote about the lawsuit for FrontPage in "Yale v. U.S. military, round 2." I opined at the time: "The legal merits of the New Jersey lawsuit rival those of the obesity lawsuits brought by overweight consumers of fast food outlets –- they are, so to speak, slim to none."
JOHN adds: It's interesting that Chief Justice Roberts was able to get a unanimous court behind his opinion. Maybe we really will see a "Roberts Court."
UPDATE: Dean Polsby had this to say to Power Line about the decision:
This is really a stinging rebuke, not only to FAIR but to an entire industry that has become complacent and self-indulgent. Many law professors really do believe, with the late Justice Brennan, that their own strongly-held policy preferences are all encoded somehow in the Constitution. This is a timely reminder that it just isn’t so.
