Schools can't bar recruiters, court says

WASHINGTON — In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that colleges and universities that accept federal funding cannot bar military recruiters from their campuses because they object to the Pentagon's discriminatory treatment of gays in the armed services.

In an 8-0 decision, the top court decisively rejected the claim by a group of law schools and faculty members that their First Amendment rights to free speech — in opposing the Defense Department's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays — were being violated by allowing the recruiters on campus. The high court's ruling reversed an appellate court decision that held that the schools had the right to block the recruiters because they opposed the military's policy.

While the court's decision came in a case brought by the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights Inc., made up of several law schools and academics, the ruling effectively blocks colleges and universities generally from banning the recruiters from their campuses if they wish to keep federal aid.

In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., the court rejected the law schools' argument that they were like plaintiffs in previously decided high court cases, such as West Virginia students forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and salute the flag or New Hampshire motorists made to display the state's "Live Free or Die" motto on their license plates. In both those cases, the Supreme Court had earlier found that state governments had violated the Constitution by requiring compliance from the students and motorists.

"There is nothing in this case approaching a government-mandated pledge or motto that the school must endorse," Roberts wrote.

The chief justice delivered a caustic rebuke to the law schools and law professors who brought the case. "Compelling a law school that sends scheduling e-mails for other recruiters to send one for a military recruiter is simply not the same as forcing a student to pledge allegiance, or forcing a Jehovah's Witness to display the motto 'Live Free or Die' and it trivializes the freedom protected in (those earlier cases) to suggest that," he wrote.

Justice Samuel Alito abstained from the decision because he was not on the court when the case was argued three months ago.

The decision was a major win for the military, whose relations with academia have frequently been rocky since the Vietnam War era when protests against the war and the U.S. armed forces raged on the nation's campuses.