Inside Higher Ed reports that New York Law School has been "placed on a list of higher education institutions that are iineligible for contracts and grants by reason of a determination by the Secretary of Defense that the institution prohibits or in effect prevents military recruiter access to the campus, students on campus or student directory information.'" According to the story, a Pentagon spokeswoman has also said that "two other law schools — Vermont Law School and William Mitchell College of Law, in St. Paul, Minn. — were also in violation of the Solomon amendment and faced the loss of federal funds." Yale Law School has also excluded military recruiters from campus but is protected by a court order.
HT: Paul Caron (twice in one day!).
Update: On further reflection, I believe each of these three law schools are stand alone law schools unattached to larger universities (unless I'm mistaken). As a result, the Government's action is narrowly focused on law schools and does not raise the issue of withholding funding for an entire university as a result of the law school's decisions. The article suggests that perhaps they were being picked-on because they were "little guys," but this may explain the pattern of those schools affected. (HT to Our Commenters for first raising this question).
Update:
Doug Lederman, the author of the Insider Higher Ed piece elaborates on his article and some of our Comments on our Comment Board here.
I was always under the impression that law schools, like business and med schools, were cash cows for the University as a whole.
If that is the case, then will withholding contracts and grants even pressure compliance?
The problem is that while the law school might be a cash cow for a university, lots of other programs depend on federal funds.
Some things which I've never heard made clear:
1. Does this apply to financial aid?
2. How does it interact with, say, the land-grant ststus of a school?
Didn't Eugene predict a 9-0 reversal in the Yale case?
The revocation of federal funds from the law school would, in the case of just about every public law school, be pretty catastrophic. I'm not sure private schools would be much better off. The lost DOD funding to the parent university makes the SA a very big stick.
In the UC system, for instance, if Boalt, Hastings, UCLA or Davis law schools are found to not comply, the offending law school would get no federal money at all, and the entire UC system would lose all the research funding provided by the DOD. I don't know what the numbers are, but that's a huge chunk o' change.
Hastings is in an unusual situation -- it's not affiliated with any of the university campuses, and in effect reports directly to the Regents of the entire system. Is it clear that funds would be withheld from the entire system, rather than the campus (e.g. Berkeley, in the case of Boalt)? If so, there's no way UC would take the loss of federal funds.
But as I recall the decision re allowing federal recruiters on is a campus-by-campus (school-by-school?) decision. Does the SA reach beyond the entity that makes the decision, to target all affiliated entities?
Second, I thought I'd clarify a couple things: (1) Solomon does apply to an entire institution even if only part of it is deemed to have violated the law; (2) as I noted in the piece, all three of the institutions singled out are freestanding law schools; (3) also as noted, federal student aid is NOT affected by the law -- only contracts and research grants and some other funds; and (4) the two of the three independent law schools at which I reached someone both said that they did not have any federal money at stake as a result.
Lastly, the question I was trying to raise in the piece (and perhaps I did so inelegantly) is whether the Pentagon punished these three institutions because it wanted to make its point and uphold its principle, but has not, as yet, taken action against Harvard's law school precisely because the impact there would be so much more significant (because Harvard University takes in so much federal money that would be subject to Solomon). The other possibility -- and unfortunately I was unable to reach anyone at Harvard, despite numerous attempts, to answer this -- is that in one way or another, military recruiters are getting access to law students at Harvard, despite the law school's stated policy. If anyone can shed light on that, I would greatly appreciate it.
Well, they could until you shut the door on them. I pray the law schools get their butts kicked on this. I know my law school is just dying to kick out the military. Every time they come to our school, the school adds in 28-point font at the bottom that the military does not comply with their discrimination policy. (What nerve!) Then, we get an e-mail that says "Diversity scholarship: Available to all minorities and women regardless of ethnicity." (In other words, white men need not apply. Yet, they never seem to mention their discrimination policy when white men are shut out of opportunities.
The "institutional bigotry" that is being preserved is the military's policy on homosexuals. Military recruiters are not allowed on campuses because the military engages in discrimination of which the law schools do not approve.
If you don't like it, write your Congressman. The military is simply following a Congressionally-enacted law -- a bill that Clinton signed.
Or would you rather the military not follow the law?
What has always bothered me about the law schools' position here is that it is primarily the faculties' Freedom of Association that is at issue here, and not that of the students. Yet, the faculty can easily avoid the recruiters. Indeed, they would probably have to go out of their way to even see them.
It is almost never a vote of the students that results in these bans, but rather votes of the faculty, or an administration responding to the sentiment of the faculty.
So, to some extent, the faculty are preventing any students who want to freely associate with the military (in a time of war) from doing so.
To me, this has always been the height of hypocracy, esp. given that these faculty invariably back discrimination IN FAVOR of gays, even if such would not be acceptable to the students.
Colleges will slowly become a few hundred satellites of the University of Moscow circa 1979 if they are entitled to government funding without any of the responsibility.