Opinion ID: 3013601
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background Facts 2 and Procedural Posture

Text: Law schools have long maintained formal policies of nondiscrimination that withhold career placement services from employers who exclude employees and applicants based on such factors as race, gender, and religion. In the 1970s law schools began expanding these policies to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation as well. In response to this trend the American Association of Law Schools (“AALS”) voted unanimously in 1990 to include sexual orientation as a protected category. As a result, 2 The facts on appeal are not in dispute. As the District Court noted, the Government did not challenge or supplement the factual assertions presented by FAIR in its motion for injunctive relief. FAIR, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 277. 7 virtually every law school now has a comprehensive policy like the following: [The] School of Law is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all students and graduates. The Career Services facilities of this school shall not be available to those employers who discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap or disability, age, or sexual orientation . . . . Before using any of the Career Services interviewing facilities of this school, an employer shall be required to submit a signed statement certifying that its practices conform to this policy.
The United States military excludes servicemembers based on evidence of homosexual conduct and/or orientation. See 10 U.S.C. § 654.3 Citing their nondiscrimination policies, 3 While the current statutory version of the military’s exclusionary policy has existed since 1993, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-160, § 571(a)(1), 107 Stat. 1547, 1670 (Nov. 30, 1993), the military has had formal regulatory policies excluding gays and lesbians since World War I and a practice of such exclusion since the 8 some law schools began in the 1980s refusing to provide access and assistance to military recruiters. This caught the attention of members of Congress. In 1994, Representative Gerald Solomon of New York sponsored an amendment to the annual defense appropriation bill that proposed to withhold DOD funding from any educational institution with a policy of denying or effectively preventing the military from obtaining entry to campuses (or access to students on campuses) for recruiting purposes. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995, Pub. L. No. 103-337 Revolutionary War. See, e.g., Articles of War of 1916, Pub. L. No. 242, art. 93, 39 Stat. 619, 664 (assault with intent to commit sodomy punishable by court martial); see generally Randy Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military 11–17 (1994). Under the current statute, a servicemember is separated from the military if it is found that he or she “engaged in . . . a homosexual act” or “stated that he or she is a homosexual” or “married or attempted to marry a person known to be of the same biological sex.” 10 U.S.C. § 654(b). It defines “homosexual” and “homosexual act” to include evidence demonstrating “a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts.” Id. It also allows servicemembers to rebut findings of proscribed conduct with evidence of the lack of a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, i.e., evidence of a heterosexual orientation. Id. Law schools interpret the ban as conflicting with their policies against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 9 § 558, 108 Stat. 2663, 2776 (1994). During debate in the House of Representatives, Representative Solomon urged the passage of his amendment “on behalf of military preparedness” because “recruiting is the key to an all-volunteer military.” 140 Cong. Rec. H3861 (daily ed. May 23, 1994). He argued that it was hypocritical for schools to receive federal money while at the same time denying the military access to their campuses: “[T]ell[] recipients of Federal money at colleges and universities that if you do not like the Armed Forces, if you do not like its policies, that is fine. That is your [F]irst [A]mendment right[]. But do not expect Federal dollars to support your interference with our military recruiters.” Id. The amendment’s co-sponsor, Representative Richard Pombo of California, said Congress needed to target “policies of ambivalence or hostility to our Nation’s armed services” that are “nothing less than a backhanded slap at the honor and dignity of service in our Nation’s Armed Forces.” Id. at H3863. He urged his colleagues to “send a message over the wall of the ivory tower of higher education” that colleges’ and universities’ “starry-eyed idealism comes with a price. If they are too good—or too righteous—to treat our Nation’s military with the respect it deserves[,] then they may also be too good to receive the generous level of taxpayer dollars presently enjoyed by many institutions of higher education in America.” Id. 10 Other Representatives opposed the amendment, alleging violations of academic freedom and civil rights. See, e.g., id. at H3862 (Rep. Dellums) (“We should not . . . chill or abridge privacy, speech, or conscience by threatening a college with a Federal funds termination because it chose for whatever reason to deny access to military recruiters . . . . We should not browbeat them . . . into becoming involuntary agents of Federal policy.”). In light of Vietnam War-era legislation, rarely invoked, that already granted the DOD discretion to withhold funding from colleges and universities that barred military recruiters, see Pub. L. No. 92-436, § 606, 86 Stat. 734, 740 (1972), the DOD itself objected to the proposed amendment as “unnecessary” and “duplicative.” 140 Cong. Rec. H3864 (Rep. Schroeder) (explaining the DOD’s position). The DOD also feared that withholding funds from universities could be potentially harmful to defense research initiatives. Id. But the House voted for the amendment by a vote of 271 to 126. Id. at H3865. Several months later the Senate approved the defense spending appropriations bill, including Representative Solomon’s amendment, and the “Solomon Amendment” ultimately became law.
Interpretations In 1997 Congress amended the Solomon Amendment by expanding its penalty to include, in addition to DOD funds, funds administered by other federal agencies, including the 11 Departments of Transportation,4 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.5 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104–208, § 514(b), 110 Stat. 3009–270 (1996). This amendment was recodified in another amendment in 1999. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Pub. L. No. 106–65, § 549, 113 Stat. 512, 609–11 (1999). DOD regulations have clarified this expansion, penalizing an offending “subelement” of a college or university (i.e., a law school) that prohibits or effectively prevents military recruiting with the loss of federal funding from all of the federal agencies identified in the statute, while withholding from the offending subelement’s parent institution only DOD funds. 32 C.F.R. § 216.3(b)(1). The 1999 amendment also codified exceptions to the Solomon Amendment’s penalties for schools that (1) have ceased an offending policy or practice, or (2) have a longstanding religious-based policy of pacifism. § 549, 113 4 Department of Homeland Security funds later replaced Department of Transportation funds. Pub. L. No. 107-296, § 1704(b)(1), 116 Stat. 2314 (2002). 5 A separate amendment cancelled the application of the Solomon Amendment to direct student aid. Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2000, § 8120, Pub. L. No. 10679, 113 Stat. 1212, 1260 (1999). 12 Stat. at 610(c) (codified at 10 U.S.C. § 983(c)). DOD regulations subsequently added a third exception for schools that provide military recruiters a degree of access equal to that provided to other recruiters. 32 C.F.R. § 216.4(c). Following the 1999 amendment, the DOD enforced the Solomon Amendment consistent with its terms. Only schools whose policies or practices “prohibit[ed], or in effect prevent[ed],” military representatives “from gaining entry to campuses, or access to students . . . on campuses for purposes of military recruiting,” were penalized. Thus, by merely allowing military recruiters to gain access to campuses, many law schools avoided the Solomon Amendment’s penalty while reaffirming their opposition to the military’s exclusionary employment policy by not providing them affirmative assistance in the manner provided to other recruiters. Harvard Law School, for example, allowed military recruiters on campus to recruit at the offices of its Veterans Association but did not volunteer its placement personnel to arrange interviews. Boston College Law School allowed military recruiters to conduct on-campus interviews, but kept their literature in the library rather than in the career services office. Until the fall of 2001, the DOD did not consider these and other similar “ameliorative measures” to violate the Solomon Amendment and expressed enthusiasm for the law schools’ cooperation with what it described as successful recruiting efforts. See FAIR, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 282 (citing record evidence). 13 But following the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, the DOD began applying an informal policy of requiring not only access to campuses, but treatment equal to that accorded other recruiters. As evidence of this informal policy, a letter from the DOD’s Acting Deputy Undersecretary William J. Carr to Richard Levin, the President of Yale University, stated that universities are required “to provide military recruiters access to students equal in quality and scope to that provided to other recruiters.” 6 The same letter stated that the “DOD requires that there not be a substantial disparity in the treatment of military recruiters as compared to other potential employers.” This changed context meant that Yale’s willingness to let military recruiters use a room in Yale Law School’s building for interviews would not pass muster unless it also provided military recruiters with the same level of assistance from its career development office (arranging interviews, posting notices, etc.) provided to other recruiters. Furthermore, the DOD intimated that failure to comply would result in a loss to 6 In wording the new informal policy’s substantive requirement, the DOD borrowed language from the existing policy’s regulatory exception—32 C.F.R. 216.4(c) (exempting from Solomon Act compliance a law school that “presents evidence that the degree of access by military recruiters is at least equal in quality and scope to that afforded to other employers”). 14 Yale University not only of DOD funds, but of all federal funds (a penalty that is not consistent with the DOD’s existing regulations, under which the offending subelement’s parent institution is penalized with the loss of only DOD funds, see 32 C.F.R. § 216.3(b)(1)). In another example, the DOD advised the University of Southern California Law School in 2002 that its past practice of accommodating military recruiters—providing them with standard employer information, referring them to the campus ROTC office for scheduling of interview office space, posting notices in the weekly newsletter for students, and making military recruitment materials available to students—would violate the Solomon Amendment unless its career services office invited military recruiters to participate in an offcampus job fair open to other employers. According to the DOD, anything less than equal treatment for military recruiters “sends the message that employment in the Armed Forces is less honorable or desirable than employment with other organizations”—a dangerous message to be sending “in today’s military climate.” In light of the millions of dollars at stake, every law school that receives federal funds had, by the 2003 recruiting season, suspended its nondiscrimination policy as applied to military recruiters. This past summer Congress amended the Solomon Amendment to codify the DOD’s informal policy. Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 15 2005, Pub. L. No. 108–375, § 552, 118 Stat. 1811, 1911 (2004). Now, under the terms of the statute itself, law schools and their parent institutions are penalized for preventing military representatives from gaining entry to campuses for the purpose of military recruiting “in a manner that is at least equal in quality and scope to the [degree of] access to campuses and to students that is provided to any other employer.” 10 U.S.C. § 983(b).
In September 2003, FAIR sued the DOD and the other federal departments whose funds are restricted under the Solomon Amendment, seeking on constitutional grounds a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the statute and the then-existing (now codified) informal policy. The Government defendants moved to dismiss for lack of standing. The District Court denied both the motion to dismiss and FAIR’s motion for preliminary injunction. See FAIR, 291 F. Supp. 2d at 296, 322. This appeal followed.