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Federal Suit to Challenge U.S. Military Recruiting Policy

The Service Members' Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has joined a coalition of United States law schools in a federal suit to challenge the U.S. Departement of Defense and its policy on recruitment and access to federal funds.

Visit the Service Members' Legal Defense Network website for more information: www.sldn.org

Third Circuit asked to support university non-discrimination policies

WASHINGTON, DC – Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) yesterday joined a coalition of law schools, professors and legal organizations in asking the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a 1996 law granting the Department of Defense unfettered access to university students. The groups have argued that the law, known as the Solomon Amendment, forces universities to violate non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation. Within the last year, Defense Department officials began more rigorously enforcing the law.

The Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights (FAIR) and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) have filed suit, saying the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members is incompatible with university policies prohibiting campus recruiting by employers who discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. SLDN filed a friend of the court brief on Monday, supporting those claims.

“Our military should play by the same rules as other campus recruiters,” said SLDN Executive Director C. Dixon Osburn. “Universities have every right to expect that their lesbian, gay and bisexual students will enjoy the same employment opportunities as their heterosexual students. The Solomon Amendment is an unfair attempt to force federally sanctioned discrimination on our campuses. It violates the very foundation of equal opportunity.”

Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor leading the suit, told the Associated Press in September that Pentagon leaders are “using this law to reach into the core of our educational philosophy and change it.”

The FAIR coalition includes prominent law schools as well as the more than 900 law school professors who comprise SALT’s membership. The schools have organized under the FAIR banner to protect their identity, fearing retribution from the Department of Defense.

For more information on the Solomon Amendment and the suit, FAIR et al v. Rumsfeld, visit www.solomonresponse.org.

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