A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

I haven't had the chance to read the Supreme Court's unanimous opinion affirming the Solomon Amendment. But via Todd Zywicki, we have some very interesting commentary at the George Mason University School of Law website as well as excellent in-depth analysis by Dale Carpenter. Stephen Bainbridge is quite perceptive in discerning how the decision in FAIR v. Rumsfeld bodes for the direction of the Court in considering Chief Justice Roberts's opinion:

I agree that this opinion tends to confirm the very high hopes many of us had for Roberts - well-argued, cleanly written, and sufficiently persausive . . .

And policywise, this strikes me as being right on the money:

I disagree with "don't ask, don't tell," but that's completely beside the point. What the schools were arguing was that they had a First Amendment right to receive federal taxpayer money without having to accept the strings that Congress had attached to it, and that's just absurd. They were asking the Court to let them have their cake and eat it too, and apparently even Stevens and Ginsburg aren't quite so lost to reality that they couldn't see through that.

Besides, I honestly don't think it's a stretch on my part to say I believe the schools mostly use "don't ask, don't tell" as a convenient smokescreen behind which to hide a more general contempt for the military, especially seeing as there are plenty of places that have kept out recruiters and/or ROTC for decades, well before Bill Clinton adopted the rule they're supposedly protesting. Congress should end the current policy and allow everyone who seeks to serve to do so without having to live a lie, but what Congress should NOT end is the Solomon Amendment: you want the taxes that come out of my pocket, you have to let recruiters on campus, period. Anyone who wants to can still show up and protest. Of course, if you're really so adamant about your principles as you say you are, no one's forcing you to take the money.