SINCE TAKING OVER Congress in 1995, the Republican party has proven itself mostly inept at using the power of the federal purse to pursue conservative goals. But the Solomon Amendment, the 1996 brainchild of former New York GOP congressman Gerald Solomon, is now proving to be a notable exception. For some two decades, elite universities have barred the armed forces from their campuses because of both general disdain for the military and disagreement with their personnel policy on gays. (Never mind that this same military just ousted a regime in Afghanistan that stoned homosexuals to death for sport.) In response, the Solomon Amendment made federal research funding for colleges contingent on schools’ providing to military recruiters the same campus access offered to all other employers.
Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account
Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.