thedrifter
03-10-06, 12:07 PM
Recruiters by law allowed on law campus
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Friday, March 10, 2006.
Most people are proud of any conviction they hold on principle and feel bound to back it up with action.
So, for a decade since Congress passed a law that made access for military recruiters a requirement for being able to receive federal funds, law schools in America have bucked that law, on principle.
The principle that the law schools backed? In the legal opinion of some legal scholars, the military practices discrimination against gays, so therefore military recruiters should be banned from access to populations of nondiscriminating law students.
That was the argument. In effect, unless the military permits open access for gay participation in the military, then because that practice violated anti-discrimination principles, practices and laws, the recruiters should be barred.
Such a principled stand tells ordinary people of all orientations a good deal about the world view of law schools, legal scholars and law school students in our nation at this moment. The stand, however laudable and nondiscriminatory in their eyes, also gives the world a view of really how little the mandarins of the academies of law know or understand about the military - and when one principle should trump another principle.
Nondiscrimination is fine. We should practice it. Tolerance of those who do no active harm to others makes for a society that practices a "live and let live" custom. It is that custom that makes our democracy, liberties and openness a beacon of example to other cultures and societies that make it legal practice and custom to prey upon "the other," whoever the other might be. Could be Shiite, Catholic, animist or any ethnic minority or grouping or orientation that so offends those who hold a monopoly on power.
There is another principle, however. And that principle is that this nation, with its openness and liberties, is worth defending. We fail to understand how the legal and academic mandarins at such places as the colleges of law, the campus of Harvard and other similar locales find themselves so hostile to the principle that this nation is worth defending.
Recently, Bob Alvis, an Air Force veteran and World War II history buff, called the newspaper to inform an editor about recent news from the University of Washington. The student "senate" voted to deny any university memorial recognition of Col. "Pappy" Boyington, the Marine Corps aviator who won a Medal of Honor in the Pacific War. The rationale was that Boyington's achievement of shooting down a couple of dozen Japanese combatant antagonists who were trying to kill him was no accomplishment at all.
In effect, University of Washington student "senators" rated Boyington as a killer, nothing more, certainly not an example to U. of Washington students. How utterly sad to acknowledge the intellectual dimness of those "senators." They put the "student" in student government.
Those same students received the bounty, the opportunity to attend a state university, because of the actions of Boyington and others. Oh, hell, Boyington might well have saved the life of a grandfather of one of those self-same "senators," giving them the birthright to live and thrive.
That is what the military does. By virtue of the dangers that soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and "Coasties" of the Coast Guard undertake on a daily basis, they provide the safety, the security for all the legal students and all the other students to survive and thrive, be they white, black, gay or any hue and shade or belief system that falls within Constitutional protection.
Why do recruiters recruit? About 30 years ago, amid the national argument and agonies of Vietnam, it became clear that a draft that sucked in the poor and minorities while giving the children of the affluent a pass would not do as a national practice anymore. We have a volunteer military now, and the myth is that it is populated by, well, the poor and minorities. That is a myth.
Closer to the fact is the military is populated largely by ranks of high school graduates and college dropouts who are motivated by a fusion of wanting to get something going with their lives and the patriotism that inevitably grows with service. They go to war for us when called upon.
Largely, our well-trained and effective volunteer military emerges from modest and middle-class backgrounds, and the children of the affluent still are allowed a pass. Shameful, but true.
The federal government's first purpose is to provide for the common defense. It needs to do so in the most efficient manner. By the way, there is no argument that gays do not serve in the military. Common sense and experience informs us that they do. They have done so over generations. And so what? Honorable service is honorable service.
But the Supreme Court has held that the military is the best judge of how to provide the common defense. And that principle trumps the legal principle espoused by the vast majority of legal scholars who never have worn the uniform and do not understand with any clarity why we need an effective military in the first place. They are merely the beneficiaries of the protection the military affords all citizens of all persuasions.
The military seeks open access to federally funded institutions, mostly to recruit for the officers needed to lead our young people in the ranks. They also even need a few good lawyers.
Don't like it? Memo to law school: Send back the federal check, then stand on your principle.
Ellie
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Friday, March 10, 2006.
Most people are proud of any conviction they hold on principle and feel bound to back it up with action.
So, for a decade since Congress passed a law that made access for military recruiters a requirement for being able to receive federal funds, law schools in America have bucked that law, on principle.
The principle that the law schools backed? In the legal opinion of some legal scholars, the military practices discrimination against gays, so therefore military recruiters should be banned from access to populations of nondiscriminating law students.
That was the argument. In effect, unless the military permits open access for gay participation in the military, then because that practice violated anti-discrimination principles, practices and laws, the recruiters should be barred.
Such a principled stand tells ordinary people of all orientations a good deal about the world view of law schools, legal scholars and law school students in our nation at this moment. The stand, however laudable and nondiscriminatory in their eyes, also gives the world a view of really how little the mandarins of the academies of law know or understand about the military - and when one principle should trump another principle.
Nondiscrimination is fine. We should practice it. Tolerance of those who do no active harm to others makes for a society that practices a "live and let live" custom. It is that custom that makes our democracy, liberties and openness a beacon of example to other cultures and societies that make it legal practice and custom to prey upon "the other," whoever the other might be. Could be Shiite, Catholic, animist or any ethnic minority or grouping or orientation that so offends those who hold a monopoly on power.
There is another principle, however. And that principle is that this nation, with its openness and liberties, is worth defending. We fail to understand how the legal and academic mandarins at such places as the colleges of law, the campus of Harvard and other similar locales find themselves so hostile to the principle that this nation is worth defending.
Recently, Bob Alvis, an Air Force veteran and World War II history buff, called the newspaper to inform an editor about recent news from the University of Washington. The student "senate" voted to deny any university memorial recognition of Col. "Pappy" Boyington, the Marine Corps aviator who won a Medal of Honor in the Pacific War. The rationale was that Boyington's achievement of shooting down a couple of dozen Japanese combatant antagonists who were trying to kill him was no accomplishment at all.
In effect, University of Washington student "senators" rated Boyington as a killer, nothing more, certainly not an example to U. of Washington students. How utterly sad to acknowledge the intellectual dimness of those "senators." They put the "student" in student government.
Those same students received the bounty, the opportunity to attend a state university, because of the actions of Boyington and others. Oh, hell, Boyington might well have saved the life of a grandfather of one of those self-same "senators," giving them the birthright to live and thrive.
That is what the military does. By virtue of the dangers that soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and "Coasties" of the Coast Guard undertake on a daily basis, they provide the safety, the security for all the legal students and all the other students to survive and thrive, be they white, black, gay or any hue and shade or belief system that falls within Constitutional protection.
Why do recruiters recruit? About 30 years ago, amid the national argument and agonies of Vietnam, it became clear that a draft that sucked in the poor and minorities while giving the children of the affluent a pass would not do as a national practice anymore. We have a volunteer military now, and the myth is that it is populated by, well, the poor and minorities. That is a myth.
Closer to the fact is the military is populated largely by ranks of high school graduates and college dropouts who are motivated by a fusion of wanting to get something going with their lives and the patriotism that inevitably grows with service. They go to war for us when called upon.
Largely, our well-trained and effective volunteer military emerges from modest and middle-class backgrounds, and the children of the affluent still are allowed a pass. Shameful, but true.
The federal government's first purpose is to provide for the common defense. It needs to do so in the most efficient manner. By the way, there is no argument that gays do not serve in the military. Common sense and experience informs us that they do. They have done so over generations. And so what? Honorable service is honorable service.
But the Supreme Court has held that the military is the best judge of how to provide the common defense. And that principle trumps the legal principle espoused by the vast majority of legal scholars who never have worn the uniform and do not understand with any clarity why we need an effective military in the first place. They are merely the beneficiaries of the protection the military affords all citizens of all persuasions.
The military seeks open access to federally funded institutions, mostly to recruit for the officers needed to lead our young people in the ranks. They also even need a few good lawyers.
Don't like it? Memo to law school: Send back the federal check, then stand on your principle.
Ellie