Appeals court overturns the Solomon Act

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This is the first strike against the Solomon Act. Basically, the act states that any school or university who bars military recruiters from it’s campus because the school disagrees with the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy, that school could lose their federal funding.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that the act is unconstitutional because it sought to override the First Amendment.

I say it’s about time that the Federal Government start living by the law of the land, as we all do.

Ironically, a ruling in favor of the Boy Scouts of America disallowing homosexuals actually helped overturn Solomon.

The Solomon Amendment requires law schools to express a message that is incompatible with their educational objectives, and no compelling governmental interest has been shown to deny this freedom. - Judge Thomas L. Ambro (source)

The two-judge majority based its decision in part on an earlier Supreme Court ruling that the Boy Scouts of America could bar homosexuals from becoming scouts or troop leaders.

The court reasoned that if the Boy Scouts could legally reject gays because it had a core belief that homosexuality is illegitimate behavior, then other institutions could impose an opposite type of restriction if it had a core value that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong.

“The court understood that if bigots have a First Amendment right to exclude gays, then enlightened institutions have a right to exclude bigots,” said E. Joshua Rosenkranz, a lawyer for The Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, which was the lead plaintiff in the suit. (source)

Other Opinion
Solomon Ruling Raises Recruitment Questions
Solomon’s Revenge - An Editorial

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This page contains a single entry by Bill published on November 30, 2004 7:30 AM.

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