Schadenfreude Alert
Here, the Wall Street Journal comments on yesterday's splendid Supreme Court decision upholding the Solomon Amendment, which requires colleges and universities to provide the same access to the military that it does to all other employers, or else lose federal funding.
(By the way, it contains this amusing line: "Yale can even show its disagreement with mainstream America, as it recently did, by admitting as a student a former senior official of Afghanistan's Taliban, a regime that treated homosexuals far more harshly than the U.S. military ever has.") Ironic, and true.
But what's interesting is what the op/ed goes on to note. Sure, all the justices could have simply noted that the access requirement violates no first amendment right because the schools could simply refuse the access and forgo the federal funds. But the Court went even further, as the Journal notes:
It held that Congress, under its Constitutional authority to "provide for the common Defence," "to raise and support Armies" and "to provide and maintain a Navy," could mandate that colleges and universities permit military recruiters on campus, whether they accept federal money or not.
Given this holding, it's quite possible that some ambitious congressman or senator could seize the low-hanging political fruit here and simply require that the universities give access to the military, with or without the promise of federal aid.
But I hope they don't. That would make it too easy for the moral titans in academia -- they could simply offer the access and then blame the federal government.
Best to leave things as they are: Unless and until there's other legislation, the Solomon amendment still permits a school to evict the military, but it then forgoes federal money in exchange. Here's why: It's so much more fun to watch high-minded academic hypocrites explain to their students why they're willing to sell out their higher morality for the chance to sup at the government trough -- or else to be forced to concede that the division of the university that they represent (be it the law or medical school or the undergraduate college itself) is so insignificant that its own objections have no weight in determining university policy.
No, I don't feel sorry for them at all.
(By the way, it contains this amusing line: "Yale can even show its disagreement with mainstream America, as it recently did, by admitting as a student a former senior official of Afghanistan's Taliban, a regime that treated homosexuals far more harshly than the U.S. military ever has.") Ironic, and true.
But what's interesting is what the op/ed goes on to note. Sure, all the justices could have simply noted that the access requirement violates no first amendment right because the schools could simply refuse the access and forgo the federal funds. But the Court went even further, as the Journal notes:
It held that Congress, under its Constitutional authority to "provide for the common Defence," "to raise and support Armies" and "to provide and maintain a Navy," could mandate that colleges and universities permit military recruiters on campus, whether they accept federal money or not.
Given this holding, it's quite possible that some ambitious congressman or senator could seize the low-hanging political fruit here and simply require that the universities give access to the military, with or without the promise of federal aid.
But I hope they don't. That would make it too easy for the moral titans in academia -- they could simply offer the access and then blame the federal government.
Best to leave things as they are: Unless and until there's other legislation, the Solomon amendment still permits a school to evict the military, but it then forgoes federal money in exchange. Here's why: It's so much more fun to watch high-minded academic hypocrites explain to their students why they're willing to sell out their higher morality for the chance to sup at the government trough -- or else to be forced to concede that the division of the university that they represent (be it the law or medical school or the undergraduate college itself) is so insignificant that its own objections have no weight in determining university policy.
No, I don't feel sorry for them at all.
posted by LadybugUSA at 3:33 PM
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