Yale Law School Stands Up Against Discrimination

I spotted this article in the Hartford Courant this morning. Yale Law School has made it a policy not to allow military recruiters in it’s school because the military discriminates against gay and lesbian soldier with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

In this article, we have Judge William M. Acker Jr., an alum of Yale Law School, who sent Yale Law School a letter stating that because of their policy, the judge would not accept any applications from the law school.

The judge is a 1952 graduate of the law school and resides in Alabama, so I can understand his views on this. But, of all people, the judge should realize that history hasn’t treated people with those kinds of views with kindness. Perhaps he will be dead by the time that he will be labeled as being short sited in his willingness to embrace one of the last bastions of discrimination; that of discriminating against gays.

NEW HAVEN -- Upset that Yale Law School bars military recruiters from interviewing job candidates, a federal judge in Alabama has announced he will no longer consider any Yale Law students for clerkships.

William M. Acker Jr., a senior judge with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama in Birmingham, wrote a letter last month to Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh to inform him that he would not accept any applications from the law school. [...]

Acker’s decision is a protest against the law school’s policy of limiting military recruiters’ access to students. Officials of the law school say the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against gays violates the school’s anti-discrimination regulations. [...]

In his letter, Acker said he will continue to refuse Yale law students for clerkships “until YLS changes its mind,” or until the courts rule the Solomon Act to be constitutional and enforceable by the government. He also wrote that he is “exercising the same freedom of speech” that Hall protected for the Yale Law School faculty. [...]

Koh said he didn’t want to speak extensively about Acker’s letter because he didn’t want to give it more importance than it warranted. [...]

Yale law student Michael Gottlieb has been more outspoken. He responded with an open letter to Acker in which he states that he’s proud of the school’s faculty for taking a stand.

“My professors believe that their African American students will make excellent attorneys,” he wrote in the letter, which was recently published in the Yale Daily News. “They believe that their Asian students will make equally good attorneys. As will their female students. And their Muslim students. And their gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students. And they are not willing to cede this point.”