Entries for March 07, 2006

The Supreme Court in a unanimous 8-to-0 opinion (Justice Samuel Alito not participating) reversed a Third Circuit 2-to-1 ruling overturning on First Amendment grounds the Solomon Amendment, requiring law schools to give the same access to military recruiters that they give to other recruiters. Chief Justice John Roberts's decision is relatively brief, elegant, occasionally witty, and enormously persuasive. The claim that law schools' First Amendment rights to self-expression are infringed by requiring that military recruiters have access to students was always risible. The plaintiffs, an organization of law school teachers and the like, tried to hitch a ride on the Supreme Court case allowing the Boy Scouts to bar homosexuals. Nice try, but absolutely no cigar.