Colleges banning military recruiters are no wiser than Solomon

A federal appeals court yesterday ruled against the Solomon Amendment, which punishes universities that refuse to allow military recruiters on campus. From today's Washington Post

The court ruled that the Solomon Amendment violated the free-speech rights of schools that restricted on-campus recruiting in response to the military's ban on gays. By threatening to withdraw federal funds from schools that refused to cooperate with military recruiters, the court wrote, the government was compelling them "to express a message that is incompatible with their educational objectives."

As matters of law and public policy, the Solomon Amendment is wrong for precisely the reasons indicated by the court, and the schools in question were right to oppose it. However, if these schools really are interested in ending the military's antigay discrimination, they should, on their own volition, give military recruiters places of honor at their job fairs and they should encourage their students to choose military service.

"Don't ask don't tell" is immoral, un-American, and harmful to our national security. As an officer with gay and lesbian friends and family members, I took great offense whenever fellow service members would use antigay epithets. I'd take an offending colleague aside and ask him if he would use similar language about African Americans, Jews, Latinos, or other groups. Of course not! I knew I wasn't instantly changing opinions about gay people. But at least people knew they had comrades who would not tolerate antigay bigotry.

These kinds of confrontations could be quite uncomfortable, especially when they involved somebody senior in rank. But military officers are not expected to be mere functionaries, they are expected to be leaders, and leadership isn’t always comfortable. Nobody wants to think of himself as a bigot, and that’s even more true in an organization that rightly prides itself on the virtual elimination racial bigotry in its ranks. I have seen changed behavior gradually become changed attitudes, especially when service members also have the opportunity to work with openly gay civilian employees. But for change to take hold, it takes time and it takes men and women in uniform willing to perform small acts of leadership each day.

Those men and women will come from all parts of the country and from all walks of life. But if America’s top colleges and universities refuse entrée to military recruiters, they will not come from some of the institutions most likely to produce leaders who are aware of and willing to confront antigay bigotry. Moreover, many of the particular institutions in question are law schools. That means their graduates would not only become military officers, but they would become the attorneys who advise military commanders and who make daily judgments about the interpretation and enforcement of military policy. What better chance for a school to make its mark on the military than by encouraging its new attorneys to practice law in uniform? Experience tells me that officers recruited from these very schools would be especially likely to stand up and make a difference, to put themselves in those uncomfortable situations that test their mettle as leaders. Should we really deny our country -- and our gay and lesbian solders, sailors, Airmen and Marines -- the kinds of officers these schools could produce?