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Stay tuned
Tuesday the Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, the controversial case that will decide whether colleges and universities may bar military recruiters from campus. At issue is whether the Solomon Amendment, which compels schools accepting federal funding to allow recruiters on campus, violates the expressive rights of schools that wish to protest "don't ask, don't tell."
ACTA has taken the position that it is reasonable for the federal government to peg funding to compliance with federal law, and that schools owe it to their students to allow them to make their own decisions about what sort of career they want to pursue after graduation. In October, ACTA urged trustees across the nation to rethink their positions and to recognize that they have no business placing institutional activism ahead of students' futures.
The Associated Press speculates that the composition of the court may determine the decision in this case:
The Supreme Court often splits 5-4 in free-speech cases, so it is hard to predict the outcome, as well as how the impending retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor may affect the case.If Samuel Alito, President Bush's nominee to succeed O'Connor, is confirmed by the Senate before the case is decided, then Alito could be called on to break any tie vote. The ruling will likely take months to complete.
Alito, who worked as a lawyer for the Reagan administration, probably would be sympathetic to the government's arguments that college access is necessary to fill military jobs, Morrison said.
O'Connor has been a moderate in gay rights cases, voting in 2003 to prevent states from making the private sexual conduct of gays a crime. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a blistering dissent, saying that the court had "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."
But speculation is cheap, and, well, speculative. This will be a case to watch.
Posted by acta online at December 4, 2005 09:20 PM
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