Solomon Amendment
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The 1996 Solomon Amendment is the popular name of 10 U.S.C. ยง 983, a United States federal law that allows the Secretary of Defense to deny federal grants (including research grants) to institutions of higher education if they prohibit or prevent ROTC or military recruitment on campus.
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[edit] History
Named for Representative Gerald B.H. Solomon, the Solomon Amendment was first passed in 1994. It was revised in later years, most importantly in 1999, when Rep. Barney Frank pushed through an exemption for federal monies used for financial aid, and in 2001, when alterations pushed by the Republican leadership on the House Armed Services Committee made it so that an entire university would lose its federal funding if any of its schools blocked access to recruiters. This alteration significantly strengthened the act, as the military had sought access mostly to law schools, which receive little in federal money, unlike medical schools, which are not usually targeted by recruiters. The amendment does provide an exception for any institution with "a longstanding policy of pacifism based on historical religious affiliation."
[edit] Constitutional Challenge
The Association of American Law Schools, the principal consortium of United States law schools, requires that all of its member institutions establish a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and additionally demands that member schools require the same policy of any employer to which it grants access for employment.
In 2004, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals found for the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, a group representing law schools, led by Professor Kent Greenfield of Boston College Law School, opposed to the presence of military recruiters on campus. Many law schools oppose military recruiters on campus because they view it as placing their imprimatur on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuals, a policy that they believe conflicts with their non-discrimination policies.
The suit then proceeded to the Supreme Court. In Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this law in a unanimous decision [1] on March 6, 2006. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, wrote: "A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message".
At least three institutions (Vermont Law School, New York Law School, and William Mitchell College of Law) have declined to allow military recruiting on campus, and thus, federal funds as well. It should be noted that these schools receive little in way of federal funds compared to large research universitites. Harvard University, for example, receives $400 million per year in federal funding.
[edit] Other criticisms
In addition to law schools and gay rights organizations, the Solomon Amendment has come under fire from anti-war and counter-recruitment organizations, many of which argue that military recruiters should be banned from schools for reasons that extend beyond "Don't ask, don't tell." Commonly-cited justifications include what are claimed to be deceptive recruiting practices, as well as the war in Iraq. On December 6, 2005, as the Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in the Rumsfeld v. FAIR case, the Campus Antiwar Network held a nationally-coordinated set of student protests urging the Court to find for FAIR.
