Few noticed last week when, during the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the three leading candidates bolted from left-liberal orthodoxy with a pledge to enforce the Solomon Amendment.
“There’s a federal statute on the books which says that, if a college or university does not provide space for military recruiters or provide a ROTC program for its students, it can lose its federal funding,” explained NBC’s Tim Russert as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards listened. “Will you vigorously enforce that statute?” Mr. Russert didn’t mention “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (the chief reason the Solomon Amendment exists) or campus nondiscrimination policies.
Incredibly, all three candidates said they would enforce the Solomon Amendment.
I’ve noted previously how unseemly it is that law schools that banned military recruiters for following a federal law invite and honor politicians who voted for that law, executive branch officials who enforce it, and judges who uphold it. [I wrote, after earlier noting that I’m not a supporter of the Solomon Amendment: “I very much respect the opposition to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ but don’t understand why it’s okay to honor the likes of [a Senator invited to be a commencement speaker who voted for the Solomon Amendment] but not okay to even tolerate military recruiters” obeying that law while two shooting wars are going on.] It suggests either an anti-military bias, or, perhaps, an unwillingness to stand up for principle when something important (e.g., federal aid via a local Congressman, the prestige of having a senator speak at graduation) to the law school is at stake, [or maybe the perspective that politicians should be held to a lesser standard, especially if they are generally “progressive,” as with the man who signed DADT into law, Bill Clinton]. I don’t think Clinton and Obama are going to lose any invitations to law schools over this.
UPDATE: Having some read initial comments, let me note that at least some law school faculties and administrations did not claim to be simply and neutrally enforcing their nondiscrimination policies, but to be staking out a moral position in opposing DADT, and putting the onus for it solely on the military. Here’s Yale Law Dean Harold Koh: “Our faculty recently affirmed that we unanimously believe the government policy is not necessary, not wise and not legal.” After the Solomon Amendment was upheldDean Koh invited military recruiters to defend DADT: “[The panel] will be a good occasion to return to the core issue in the case, which is why the military chooses to exclude openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women from serving their country, particularly when they have not explained what national interest that policy serves.” Well, at this point it’s a federal law, and thus a question more validly put to visiting Senators, etc. Unlike a senator, a JAG recruiter has exactly zero input or discretion over the law.
I don’t mean to pick on Koh and Yale, as their sentiments simply reflect sentiments at other law schools. It’s fine to treat military recruitment on campus as an extremely important civil rights issue, so important as to vigorously oppose military recruitment at one’s school by all means at one’s disposal, even as two shooting wars continue. But if so, I still hold it unseemly to focus as an institution solely on the military’s role in enforcing the policy and not on those in government who are in fact ultimately responsible for the Solomon Amendment, and, in some cases, for making DADT into federal law.