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December 06, 2005

Why I Hope the Military Wins on Solomon Amendment

Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether law schools can be forced to open their campuses to military recruiters. Progressives argue that universities should be able to bar the recruiters from campuses under their non-discrimination rules, but a government law says they would lose their federal funding if they did so. So the law schools are before the court trying to get the law struck down as violating their free speech rights.

I hope the law schools lose.

Not because I like the military recruiting or their discrimination, but the whole "right not to associate with speech I don't like" is a doctrine that the rightwing has been pushing for decades to allow racists, gay-haters and corporations to exclude people. Most recently, the doctrine was used to strike down the New Jersey gay rights law that had required the Boy Scouts to allow gay leaders under this bastard First Amendment doctrine.

Extending the doctrine to large economic institutions like universities is just one step away from large corporations using the doctrine to attack laws protecting pro-union speech or any manner of other speech that the government protects on private property.

I wrote a lot more on this whole case when it was first decided by the Third Circuit:
http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001939.shtml
http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/001941.shtml

So this is one case I hope the bad guys win.

Posted by Nathan at December 6, 2005 04:43 PM