Check aim before you fire, Stanford:
Nearly the entire faculty of Stanford Law School has signed an e-mail to students encouraging those interested in a career in the military to meet recruiters off campus, a move that one Stanford alum argues puts the school at risk of violating the Solomon Amendment…. At issue is an e-mail signed by 80% of the law school faculty, including the dean, Larry Kramer, asking “those students who have a genuine interest in working for the military to contact JAG Corps recruiters directly and to arrange off-campus interviews, rather than express interest in the military’s participation in Spring [on campus interviews].” The e-mail also states that “[b]y meeting with military recruiters off campus, you would permit the law school to keep in force its nondiscrimination policy. More importantly, you would show respect for those of your colleagues whose expression of sexual orientation disqualifies them for military service.” The military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy violates the nondiscrimination policies for job recruiters of nearly all law schools. The Solomon Amendment requires universities to give military recruiters the same access to students as civilian job recruiters or lose federal funding.
The problem with Stanford Law’s logic–if you’d like to call it that–is their confusion over who is responsible for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That’s a Congressionally mandated policy, passed during the Clinton years. From the day it was signed into law, the decision over whether or not to admit gays has been out of the Pentagon’s hands. The proper arena for this fight is Capitol Hill, so why is Stanford taking it out on the military? Either they don’t understand the dynamics of the policy that they are protesting, or they are knowingly and willingly picking on the little guy: mid-level NCOs who are simply trying to do their jobs. And to hit this from another angle, Professor Bainbridge of UCLA Law writes:
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