High Court Ruling Backs Military Recruiters on Campuses
by Chad Groening and Jim Brown
March 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Conservative observers are praising a Monday ruling handed down from the Supreme Court requiring colleges that accept federal money to allow military recruiters on campus.
In a unanimous decision, the high court has rejected a free-speech challenge from law school professors in the latest battle over the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals. Professors who object to that policy said they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances. They said their own free-speech rights were being violated.
But the court did not see it that way, in an opinion written by new Chief Justice John Roberts in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights. "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," wrote the chief justice. Roberts said there are other, less drastic ways to protect the policy.
Under the 1996 Solomon Amendment, the Secretary of Defense can deny federal funding to institutions of higher learning if they prohibit or prevent ROTC or military recruitment on campus. The court's ruling has effectively upheld that amendment.
Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness, says she is pleased that the Supreme Court justices did not agree with the law professors' arguments -- and has instead issued what she calls a "common-sense ruling."
"Any university that invites recruiters to come isn't necessarily endorsing the businesses of the various representatives," Donnelly explains. "It's a limited kind of access that usually only happens about once a year."
She notes that the arguments brought by the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights posited that the military can and should be discriminated against. "[But actually] it was a form of discrimination against military recruiters," she says, "even though other recruiters are given access to campuses -- and the Supreme Court saw through that ...."
The CMR president says colleges that oppose the military cannot have it both ways. "Any university that wants to receive federal money is free to express its opinion on any issue involving the military," Donnelly explains. "But they don't have the right to simultaneously expect money to be given to them regardless of the intent of Congress."
Donnelly says the fact that even the liberal justices voted with the military in this decision makes one wonder why the case reached the high court in the first place.
Roberts' Rules?
Constitutional attorney Stephen Crampton apparently is not so startled that the case made it to the high court, but that the vote was unanimous. "Especially where you have law schools sort of being creative in arguing First Amendment rights," says the chief counsel for the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy.
He bases his reaction on past decisions in First Amendment cases. "That's an area where the court again typically has gone into splintered decisions, and the left wing of the court has pretty much dominated for the last several decades," he notes. "So it's another very encouraging decision."
Crampton views the ruling an another building block in the effort to restore a straightforward, no-nonsense rule of law approach to such issues -- and perhaps a reflection of the influence of the new chief justice.
"You have plaintiffs and their [friend-of-the-court briefs] consisting in law schools and liberal academics, which are typically the friends of the left wing of the court," Crampton shares. "So I think this is another major achievement by Chief Justice Roberts in achieving a majority opinion that is firm and yet straightforward, and really, in the end, very fair."
It was Roberts' third decision since joining the U.S. Supreme Court last fall. Monday's decision overturned a ruling by the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had found in favor of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights.
Chad Groening and Jim Brown, regular contributors to AgapePress, are reporters for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
