Judges order Pentagon to halt law school recruiting tactics.

Publication: Boston Globe (Boston, MA)

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COPYRIGHT 2004 The Boston Globe

Byline: Marcella Bombardieri

Nov. 30--The federal law that forces law schools to allow military recruiters on campus is an unconstitutional violation of schools' First Amendment rights, according to a ruling handed down by an appeals court in Philadelphia yesterday.

A three-judge panel issued an injunction prohibiting the Pentagon from enforcing the Solomon Amendment, which had compelled Harvard, Yale, Boston College, and many other universities to allow military recruiters on campus despite the fact that the US policy against gays serving openly in the military violates the schools' nondiscrimination rules.

"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 wrote for the two-judge majority in the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Yesterday's decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by a...

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