At law schools such as Yale and Harvard, the U.S. military is characterized by one word: discrimination. At The University of Memphis law school, the armed services are seen differently.
Chuck Holliday, a third-year law student, has applied multiple years to intern with the Judge Advocacy General's Corps. His dad is in the U. S. Air Force, and Holliday applied for a job with JAG after he graduates this spring. Although he was not selected for active duty, he is asking for reconsideration.
Each year, one or two of the 100-120 U of M law students join JAG after graduation, said Charles B. deWitt III, assistant dean for career and alumni services. Other students intern during the summer semester.
"It's a demanding career," said deWitt, who is an Army JAG reservist. But, there is interest every semester, he said. "Students are getting jobs in these careers."
Stories like these may be part of the reason that The U of M is not involved in a case currently under review by the Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR). The case pits 30 law schools against the Department of Defense in an argument over whether the federal government can withhold funding from universities whose law schools prohibit the military from recruiting on campus.
For Yale and the other law schools involved, the issue at stake is freedom of speech and expression, said U of M assistant law professor Lee A. Harris.
A 2003 graduate of Yale's law school, Harris said the school sees allowing the military recruiters access to students through the career development office as supporting the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Under the policy, the military may not ask service members if they are homosexual, but it also must discharge them on any evidence of homosexual conduct.
The American Associate of Law Schools, a non-profit association of 160 law schools, has a non-discrimination policy that does not allow employers who discriminate on the basis of race or gender to use campus recruitment offices. There are 191 American Bar Association-approved law schools in the United States.
To FAIR, not allowing recruiters is a type of speech. The military and the Department of Defense see the policy as conduct, something over which the government has more control, said Steve Mulroy, a U of M assistant law professor and constitutional law expert.
"The law schools say 'the rule places unconstitutional restriction on our ability to express ourselves,'" he said. "By requiring them to give special consideration to the military, it prohibits free speech."
Congress, in retaliation to the law schools' decision, passed the Solomon Amendment, which says that the government can withhold federal funds to any university with a law school that denies military access to campus. In 2003, FAIR sued the government and took the case to the Supreme Court, where it was argued on Dec. 6, 2005.
At The U of M, the case has not produced much stir, although there is a notice posted on the career development office's Web page about the Solomon Amendment.
"We don't want to violate federal law," said James R. Smoot, the law school's dean. The law school almost lost their accreditation recently and is working to comply with the requirements of the accreditation agencies.
"The federal law is clear as a bell," he said. "I think our practices are on line with what other law schools do."
DeWitt said, "We take great strides to try to honor diversity and commitment to anti-discrimination. We try really hard to make sure we do the right thing."
Mulroy said he doesn't expect any violations, either. "It's never affected us. The only change would be if AALS won."
The American Association of Law Schools is "like an honor society for law schools," Mulroy said, so that if they won and prohibited military recruiters from their member schools, The U of M "would almost certainly decide to do that."
Holliday, however, said he thinks that would be a disservice to the students.
"College is all about being exposed to different points of view," he said. "The University should allow those choices. If a student is against the military, they won't interview."
Both Holliday and deWitt said they have never heard anyone complain about military recruiting on campus. As the president of the Student Bar Association, Holliday said he hears a lot of complaints, but protesting the Solomon Amendment has never been one of them.
"I think it's a difference of priorities," Holliday said. "We have a lot of students who are commuters, have a lot of responsibilities outside of law school. You can call it apathy or a difference of priority."
If the Supreme Court decides in favor of the military, as seems likely to the law professors, Yale students would probably push a movement to have no campus-sponsored recruiting events, Harris said. If a law school bars all employers, federal funding would stay in place since every employer would have equal access - none.
