Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf
Page Number: 57

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

25 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

absent  the  regulation.’ ”    FAIR,  547  U. S.,  at  67  (quoting 
United States v. Albertini, 472 U. S. 675, 689 (1985)).9 

FAIR  confronted  the  interaction  between  this  principle
and an equal-access law.  The law at issue was the Solomon 
Amendment, which prohibits an institution of higher edu-
cation in receipt of federal funding from denying a military 
recruiter “the same access to its campus and students that
it provides to the nonmilitary recruiter receiving the most 
favorable access.”  547 U. S., at 55; see 10 U. S. C. §983(b).
A group of law schools  challenged the Solomon Amendment 
based on their sincere objection to the military’s “Don’t Ask, 
Don’t  Tell”  policy.  For  those  who  are  too  young  to  know, 
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a homophobic policy that barred 
openly  LGBT  people  from  serving  in  the  military.    LGBT 
people could serve only if they kept their identities secret. 
The idea was that their open existence was a threat to the
military.

The  law  schools  in  FAIR  claimed  that  the  Solomon 
Amendment infringed the schools’ First Amendment free-
dom of speech.  The schools provided recruiting assistance
in the form of emails, notices on bulletin boards, and flyers.
547 U. S., at 60–61.  As the Court acknowledged, those ser-
vices “clearly involve speech.”  Id., at 60.  And the Solomon 
Amendment  required  “schools  offering  such  services  to
other recruiters” to provide them equally “on behalf of the 
military,” even if the school deeply objected to creating such 
speech.  Id.,  at  61.  But  that  did  not  transform  the  equal 
provision  of  services  into  “compelled  speech”  of  the  kind 
barred  by  the  First  Amendment,  because  the  school’s 
speech was “only ‘compelled’ if, and to the extent, the school 
provides such speech for other recruiters.”  Id., at 62.  Thus, 

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9 The majority commits a fundamental error in suggesting that a law 
does not regulate conduct if it ever applies to expressive activities.  See 
ante, at 19, 22.  This would come as a great surprise to the O’Brien Court.