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February 08, 2005
Letter to the Editor: Hamline faculty call for university to uphold its non-discrimination policy
I am eagerly awaiting a public response from Hamline’s administration regarding its ability/inability to fully implement its own non-discrimination policy. It has been nearly two months since Hamline University Student Congress approved the “Resolution To Ban the United States Military from Recruiting on Campus.”
This past Wednesday at their monthly meeting, Hamline faculty approved a resolution through voice vote with no dissent, to recommend that all recruiters come into compliance with our nondiscrimination policy.
Prior to these resolutions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in FAIR et al. v. Rumsfeld that universities have constitutionally guaranteed rights to deny access to military recruiters in protest of the military’s discriminatory policies against gays and lesbians.
The ruling effectively places an injunction on the 1995 Solomon Amendment, which was designed to punish schools by denying federal funding if they chose to bar military recruiters. In other words, the pending injunction could potentially allow Hamline to require that the military recruiters come into compliance with our nondiscrimination policy, without jeopardizing our federal funding.
It is because of the Solomon Amendment and jeopardized federal funding that Hamline was forced to revoke a ban on military recruiters in the early 1990s. To the best of my knowledge, military recruiters now represent the only group of recruiters allowed on campus that remain in clear violation of our nondiscrimination policy.
So the question remains: Will Hamline’s administrators lead a proactive effort to ensure that all recruiters on campus abide by a policy of nondiscrimination? There has been a great deal of misinformation regarding the federal court’s ruling and whether or not it applies to Minnesota.
According to the Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights (FAIR), the lead plaintiffs in the case: “The scope of an injunction depends upon the identities of the parties properly before the Court. Because the District Court will be required to provide relief to every Plaintiff, and the Plaintiffs are not all located within the Third Circuit, the injunction will not be geographically limited The only way to give full relief to these Plaintiffs is to issue a nationwide injunction.”
Furthermore, the court has already ruled that law schools that choose to join FAIR or the Society of
American Law Teachers (SALT) will automatically be provided relief under the injunction.
The choice is clear: Hamline must join FAIR, join SALT, and take the necessary steps to fully implement its nondiscrimination policy. Inaction is no longer acceptable. To learn more about the Solomon Amendment and FAIR et al. v. Rumsfeld, go to:
http://www.solomonresponse.org/
Colin Schumacher
CLA Senior
Posted by msveum at February 8, 2005 04:23 PM