http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8870382/In two weeks, students begin their first day of classes at Cornell Law School. But when job recruiting of Cornell students intensifies next winter and spring, will military recruiters be permitted full access to them?
If the Supreme Court upholds a ruling handed down last November by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, then Cornell, Yale and other universities would be able to banish military recruiters, or restrict their access to students, as a way of expressing how deeply they oppose the law that prohibits open, practicing gays from serving in the armed forces.
A consortium of law schools and law professors filed a suit in 2003 to overturn the federal law, known as the Solomon Amendment, which says that in order to receive funding from the taxpayers, colleges and universities must grant the same access to military recruiters as they do to any other recruiters.
Named after its chief congressional sponsor, the late Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., the law applies to all colleges and universities that receive federal funds, except those with a policy of pacifism based on religious affiliation.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Dec. 6 and decide the case sometime before the end of its term next June.