Friday, December 3, 2004
Law Schools and the Military
As I was reading an article in today's ABA Journal eReport, among other things quoting the founder of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression to the effect that "Dale’s expansive view of expressive association turned out to be exactly what was needed to give law schools and organizations in the academic community a basis to resist a government policy," I wondered whether overall the freedom of expression of law schools will be enhanced by this decision. Although there are clearly a number of schools for whom the decision is a victory in that they can no longer be forced to allow the military on campus, there are many other schools who do not object to the miliary's recruiting presence on their campus. If the unconstitutionality of the Solomon amendment means that schools that want to exclude military recruiters can do so and those that don't want to exclude them can continue to allow the military to recruit on campus, no one loses. But I wonder whether this will be the case. I believe that the AALS has taken a strong position against allowing the miliary to recruit on law school campuses. If the absence the Solomon amendment means that the AALS will be tempted to take steps through its inspection/accreditation role to try to force law schools to exclude the military, will anyone be championing the expressive freedom of those law schools? Re Rob's and Rick's postings last week on the subject of this decision, shouldn't adherence to the principle of subsidiarity force us to defend the right of each school to make its own decision on this question?
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2004/12/law_schools_and.html