Findlaw has a great piece on the Solomon Amendment, the law that cuts off funding from schools that do not permit military recruiting on campus, highlighting how many institution are torn between gettting the funding they need and keeping an organization that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation away.

The Solomon Amendment is a federal law that penalizes schools that do not permit military recruiters on campus, by cutting them off from receiving federal funds. As I discussed in a prior column, some law schools and law professors have objected strenuously to this law.

These schools and professor say they do not want on their campuses any hiring organization that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. Thus, they seek to preclude the military from recruiting on campus because of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality. (The basis for the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is a federal regulation, which is itself predicated on a federal law prohibiting homosexuals from serving in the military.) But they don’t want to lose federal funds if they do bar the military. Hence, they are challenging the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment.

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There’s no shortage of information on the Soloman Amendment. Here’s a taste of what’s being said around the blogosphere.

From dougpetch.com:

Says me –

The issue isn’t whether the law violates the schools’ free speech rights – it doesn’t – but rather that it makes exercising those rights costly by forcing them to forego funding that they have become accustomed to.

From The Conservative Contrarian:

Regardless of how you feel about the Solomon amendment (and I concede it is not a perfect law), it’s pretty difficult to envision the Supremes ruling against the government in this case. That’s because, for better or worse, the power of the government to attach provisos to its funding is a pretty well established constitutional principle. Furthermore, going to back to the Grove City College case, the high court has ruled that this power is not trumped by any real or imagined First Amendment rights held by institutions of higher education.

Over at Begging to Differ:

From a layman’s perspective, I’m not sure how the First Amendment fits in here. Even if one were to disagree with Will that First Amendment rights should be reserved for students and the faculty of the university and not the university itself, this isn’t a pure First Amendment case. The government isn’t requiring universities to allow military recruiters on campus; merely withholding federal funds theoretically gives universities the discretion to decide for themselves how important their opposition to the exclusion of openly gay people in the military is. I say “theoretically” because federal funds are so important to students in most universities that almost all universities in reality would have little choice but to comply with the government’s coercion. As I recall, the Third Circuit used this reasoning when it issued an injunction against the amendment’s enforcement.

What’s your opinion?