Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that universities that receive federal funding must allow military recruiters access to their student bodies. This latest ruling is extremely troubling. To threaten to withhold funding unless universities willingly comply with the ruling is merely a coercive act that tries to dismiss legitimate objections a university might raise about the military policies.
This specific case arose after a number of law schools around the country denied recruiters access to students, a measure aimed at protesting the military's don't ask
don't tell policy about homosexual recruits (and soldiers). The simple fact is that federal funding for education should not be tied to any other aspect of a government's operations. By holding the issue of funding over the heads of college administrators, the government is seeking to curtail an institution's right to protest a discriminatory policy.
The military (all facets of it) should be treated the same as any other potential employer. They should be allowed to recruit on college campuses, but only if they adhere to the same standards as private corporations. If a college's governing body prohibits discriminatory employers from recruiting on its campus - or refuses to aid in the recruitment process, then the government should respect that decision, instead of bullying them into submission.
And let's be clear - the don't ask don't tell policy toward homosexuals is clearly discriminatory, and clearly wrong.
Although the government has the right to control its financial expenditures, it is an injustice to refuse to support public universities because of a valid objection to its policies. The coercive measures the federal government is using to ensure military recruiting success by threatening colleges reliant on federal funding is little more than blackmail.
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Funds, recruiting shouldn't be linked
