A recent Federal Appeals Court ruling that would permit
universities to ban military recruiters from campuses may have
little or no effect on University of California policies, UC
officials say.
The Federal Appeals Court for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia
ruled on Monday that universities can bar the military from
directly recruiting on their campuses without risk of losing
federal funding. The issue the ruling centers around is the
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans
soldiers from being openly gay in the military.
Calling it a First Amendment issue, the court said individual
schools could decide to bar organizations they believe subscribe to
discriminatory policies.
Though leaders of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
community on campus see the ruling as a victory, the UC’s
policies of allowing military recruiting is not likely going to
change.
“The Third Circuit’s rulings are not binding
precedents in the Ninth,” said Chris Harrington, the
Washington D.C. media coordinator for the UC, referring to the
federal appeals region under which the UC falls.
“If someone decided to take this up in the Ninth Circuit,
it could be a completely different ruling,” he said.
UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said since the university was not
included in the lawsuit, its policies of inviting military
recruiters to career events would not necessarily change.
Some schools included in the suit were the law schools of New
York University and George Washington University, according to the
New York Times. The other schools were not willing to be identified
with federal funding at stake, the Times also reported.
The ruling goes against the Solomon Amendment, passed in 1995,
that prohibits federal financial aid to universities that bar
military recruiters from their campuses. A spokesman for the
Justice Department told Times reporter Adam Liptak that a decision
to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court had not yet been
made.
Though the UCLA School of Law was not directly involved with the
case, several UCLA law students wrote amicus curae ““
“friend of the court” ““ briefs to protest the
presence of military recruiters on campus.
Despite the minimal effect the ruling may have on the UC,
Bradley Sears, the executive director of the Charles R. Williams
Project on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA,
believes it is important for the university to take note of the
precedent set.
With the Federal Appeals Court ruling being the highest ruling
made on the issue, Sears said the UC should take this opportunity
to uphold its anti-discriminatory polices.
“It’s important for colleges to have the freedom to
defy discrimination … and apply that policy to all groups,”
Sears said.
Whether or not a public university would be denying free speech
itself by banning organizations from the campus, Sears said the
military’s anti-gay policies go beyond free speech and become
an employment-discrimination issue.
The university should allow recruiters to speak to students
about their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy,
Sears said, but should not allow them to discriminate against a
certain community on campus in their hiring process.
Maj. Michael C. Berry of the UCLA Department of Military Science
said in an e-mail that his department is waiting for a review of
the ruling by the Department of Defense before commenting on the
possible implications of the ruling.
With reports from Richard Clough and Sara Taylor, Bruin
senior staff.