Yale Law Sues Uncle Sam (bushgang messing with universities)

[donsu]

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:74996

Hello, Yale Law School? This is the Department of Defense. You won't let our military recruiters interview your students, like law firms do during career recruitment events. Kindly let our people into your events, or we'll withhold $300 million in funding from the entire university. You say we discriminate against gays and lesbians? Doesn't matter.

That exchange actually took place.

-snip-

To participate in events run by the school's Career Development Office -- like interview sessions -- law firms must certify that they do not discriminate based on race, religion, or sexual orientation, among other characteristics. Since the military does dismiss people for being openly gay, Yale Law School had in recent years denied military recruiters from its official sessions.

-snip-

But in 2000, the Defense Department decided that it would deny funds to the entire university if only one of its departments denied access to military recruiters, the students' legal complaint says. The DOD didn't decide to play hardball until December 2001, and faced with jeopardizing $300 million for the university, the law school eventually relented.

-snip-

"American universities would face grave consequences if the government were permitted to use its funding in the way it has here," the brief says. "In 2002, the federal government provided approximately $87 billion in funding to universities and colleges across the country. It is not difficult to imagine that members of the faculties at these institutions often take positions in conflict with official government policy.

"Under the government's view of the First Amendment in this case," the brief continues, "it would be constitutionally permissible for the government to withdraw all federal funds to a university unless a particular faculty member or group of professors agreed to cease communicating a message that the government disliked. Such governmental power over university faculties would have far-reaching and devastating consequences for research and education."
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bushgang MO: bully, bribe, blackmail, threaten and if all else fails, murder

bushgang theme song: suck, suck, suck that money down