Revenge as a Cold Dish

The Court’s (unanimous) ruling this week that law schools accepting federal funds must allow ROTC recruiters on campus is a matter of the things coming around after they go around. During my early years in Washington, and long before I made the intellectual and spiritual leap to conservatism, I lived through a little episode called the Civil Rights Restoration Act. In this undertaking, Congress reversed a Supreme Court ruling which held that a small liberal arts college in Illinois, Grove City, was not required to adhere to Title IX anti-sex discrimination policies just because its students received federal student loans and grants. The legal theory of the Court was that the aid flowed to the individuals rather than the institution and, therefore, the school had not received direct federal funds and was not subject to federal regulation. Congress passed legislation to override the Court’s ruling which was subsequently vetoed by President Reagan. Congress then overrode the veto attaining full victory over its nemesis, Grove City College, which although the Supreme Court said it had never actually discriminated was now legally barred from actions it hadn’t contemplated.

The Robert’s Court this week applied the gander’s sauce to the goose. The Court held that a group of law schools that had refused access to the ROTC because of the military's “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was a violation of the Soloman amendment which requires that institutions of higher education receiving federal support, including via student loans and grants, must open their campuses to the ROTC. This reversal of fortune is a petard the liberals never expected to be hoisted by. The sheer outrageousness of the idea that if a right-thinking (i.e. politically liberal) person takes federal money they have to play by federal rules! Forget about rights, laws of the universe are being violated here: liberal policy preferences are always constitutional and if they aren’t then just change the damn Constitution.

The Court reminded the law schools that they had a number of choices: they could change their ROTC policies or they could discontinue taking federal money. Which, by the way, is what Grove City College did going so far as to set up its own student loan operation with PNC Bank which offers loans on terms that are competitive with the federal student loan program.

I must say, all this comeuppance and innovation is rather invigorating, isn’t it?