Opinion ID: 3013601
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Subsequent Amendments and Regulatory

Text: 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).