Opinion ID: 3013601
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Solomon Amendment significantly

Text: affects the law schools’ ability to express their viewpoint. FAIR argues that the Solomon Amendment significantly affects law schools’ ability to express their viewpoint, reflected in their policies, that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. The Solomon Amendment compels them, they contend, to disseminate the opposite message. The schools believe that, by coordinating interviews and posting and publishing recruiting notices of an employer who discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, they impair their ability to teach an inclusive message by 24 example. Put another way, FAIR maintains that the Solomon Amendment suppresses the law schools’ chosen speech by interfering with their prerogative to shape the way they educate (including, of course, the manner in which they communicate their message). In Dale, the Supreme Court recognized that “[t]he forced inclusion of an unwanted person in a group” could significantly affect the group’s ability to advocate its public or private viewpoint. 530 U.S. at 648. The viewpoint at issue in Dale was the Boy Scouts’ long-held belief that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with . . . the Scout Oath” and that “homosexuals [do not] provide a role model consistent with the[] expectations [of Scouting families].” Id. at 652. Because the Boy Scouts’ expressive purpose was to “inculcate [youth] with the Boy Scouts’ values—both expressively and by example,” id. at 649–50, the organization believed that the presence of an openly gay assistant scoutmaster could be perceived as “promot[ing] homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior,” a message inconsistent with the expression it wished to convey and the example it wished to set. Id. at 651. The Supreme Court agreed. Because James Dale was openly gay, his “presence in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” Id. at 25 653. Just as the Boy Scouts believed that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the Scout Oath,” id. at 652, the law schools believe that employment discrimination is inconsistent with their commitment to justice and fairness. Just as the Boy Scouts maintained that “homosexuals do not provide a role model consistent with the expectations of Scouting families,” id., the law schools maintain that military recruiters engaging in exclusionary hiring “do not provide a role model consistent with the expectations of,” id., their students and the legal community. Just as the Boy Scouts endeavored to “inculcate [youth] with the Boy Scouts’ values—both expressively and by example,” id. at 649–50, the law schools endeavor to “inculcate” their students with their chosen values by expression and example in the promulgation and enforcement of their nondiscrimination policies. FAIR Br. at 22–25. And just as “Dale’s presence in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior,” Dale, 530 U.S. at 653, the presence of military recruiters “would, at the very least, force the law schools to send a message,” both to students and the legal community, that the law schools “accept” employment discrimination “as a legitimate form of behavior.” Id. Notwithstanding this compelling analogy, the District 26 Court distinguished our case from Dale by suggesting there was a critical difference between the forced inclusion of a gay assistant scoutmaster and the forced presence of an “unwanted periodic visitor,” the military recruiter, in the context of a larger recruiting effort. FAIR, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 304, 305. While there was “no question” that the gay scoutmaster would “undermine the Boy Scouts’ ability to . . . inculcate its values in younger members,” the District Court wrote, the Solomon Amendment does not compel the law schools to accept the military recruiters as a “member” and does not “bestow upon them any semblance of authority.” Id. at 305. But our Court has recently held that compulsory accommodation of a government-prescribed message may violate schools’ First Amendment expressive association rights, even when that message involves our most revered affirmations of American patriotism—the Pledge of Allegiance and our National Anthem, is only minimally intrusive and lacks the schools’ imprimatur. The Circle School, 381 F.3d at 182 (holding that a statute requiring private schools to lead the Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem violates their rights under the expressive association doctrine—“Certainly, the temporal duration of a burden on First Amendment rights is not determinative of whether there is a constitutional violation . . . . Similarly, the fact that the schools can issue a general disclaimer does not erase the First Amendment infringement at issue here, for the schools are 27 still compelled to speak the [Government’s] message.”). If the Pledge and Anthem “only take[] a very short period of time each day,” and may be preceded by “a general disclaimer regarding the recitation,” yet do not “erase the First Amendment infringement at issue here,” id., then focusing on the periodic nature of the military recruiter’s visits 11 is similarly unavailing. Moreover, the District Court’s scrutiny of the law schools’ belief that the presence of military recruiters will undermine their expressive message about fairness and social justice violates the Dale Court’s instruction to “give deference to an association’s view of what would impair its expression.” 530 U.S. at 653.12 In Dale, the Court did more 11 Furthermore, the Solomon Amendment requires law schools to do more than passively accept the presence of an “unwanted periodic visitor.” They must actively assist military recruiters in a manner equal in quality and scope to the assistance they provide other recruiters. 10 U.S.C. § 983(b)(1). 12 Dale may appear to depart from prior Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area. In two expressive association cases from the 1980s, the Court considered the claims of civic associations that state statutes forcing them to accept women as members violated their expressive association rights. Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537 (1987); Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984). Closer review explains the distinction from Dale. In both cases 28 than pay lip service to deference notions. Deference distinguished the Supreme Court’s conclusion on the impairment question from that of the New Jersey Supreme Court, which had decided the case previously. The state court had ruled in Dale’s favor, holding that because the Boy Scouts have a policy of “discourag[ing] its leaders from disseminating any views on sexual issues,” Dale’s presence the Court examined the organizations’ expressive charitable and humanitarian purposes and determined that they would not be impaired by the forced inclusion of women members. Duarte, 481 U.S. at 548–49; Roberts, 468 U.S. at 626–27. The difference in outcome between these cases and Dale—the civic associations had to admit women, but the Boy Scouts did not have to admit Dale—underscores the significance of the Court’s decision to extend “deference to an association’s view of what would impair its expression.” 530 U.S. at 653. Moreover, we note that the Supreme Court had previously extended deference to what an expressive association said would impair its expression. E.g., Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 424 (1988) (“The First Amendment protects appellees’ right not only to advocate their cause but also to select what they believe to be the most effective means for so doing.”); Democratic Party v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U.S. 107, 123–24 (1981) (“[A] court[] may not constitutionally substitute its own judgment for that of the Party. A political party’s choice among the various ways of determining the makeup of a State’s delegation to the party’s national convention is protected by the Constitution.”). 29 would not significantly affect its ability to disseminate its message. 530 U.S. at 654 (citing Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, 734 A.2d 1196, 1223 (N.J. 1999) (emphasis in original)). But faced with competing views— the Boy Scouts’ view that Dale’s presence impaired their message and the state court’s view that it could not— the Supreme Court deferred to the Boy Scouts’ view. In other words, the reason why there was “no question” (in the District Court’s words in our case, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 305) that a gay scoutmaster would undermine the Boy Scouts’ message was because the Boy Scouts said it would. Dale, 530 U.S. at 653. In our case, FAIR has supplied written evidence of its belief that the Solomon Amendment’s forcible inclusion of and assistance to military recruiters undermines their efforts to disseminate their chosen message of nondiscrimination. Accordingly, we must give Dale deference to this belief,13 and conclude that 13 Furthermore, the law schools are entitled to at least as much deference as the Boy Scouts, as the Supreme Court has recognized in other contexts that universities and law schools “occupy a special niche in our constitutional tradition,” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 329 (2003), because of their “vital role in . . . democracy,” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957). The Court has acknowledged the importance of “autonomous decisionmaking by the academy.” Regents of the Univ. of Mich. v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214, 226 n.12 (1985); Sweezy, 354 U.S. at 263 (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (recognizing “four essential freedoms” of a university “to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what 30 FAIR likely satisfies the second element of an expressive association claim.