NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2005

According to news reports, military recruiters were forced to flee from Seattle Central Community College after being assaulted and battered by a student mob. Mountain States Legal Foundation advised Secretary Rumsfeld that the college's actions violated the Solomon Amendment, which requires that colleges and universities permit military recruiters on campus or lose all federal funds.

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"(B)y failing to ensure the physical safety of military recruiters on its campus, SCCC violated the Solomon Amendment," the letter advises.

"It is absolutely outrageous that members of the Armed Forces, who are asked to serve in harms way in Afghanistan and Iraq, are attacked by a mob in America," said William Perry Pendley who signed the Mountain States Legal Foundation letter. "Unless Secretary Rumsfeld responds to this craven violation of federal law, we fear that radicals on other campuses will be emboldened, will endanger the lives of men and women in uniform, and will deny to all students their right to learn how they may serve their country."

The Solomon Amendment, named after the late Rep. Jerry Solomon (R-N.Y.), requires colleges and universities to allow military recruiters on campuses "at least equal in quality and scope to the (degree of) access to campuses and to students that is provided to any other employer." The law, which was enacted in 1996 but not enforced by the Clinton Administration, is the subject of a legal challenge now destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Nov. 29, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, by a 2-1 ruling, held the Solomon Amendment "unconstitutional" because it violates the First Amendment rights of law schools and their professors, that is, their rights of speech and association. The U.S. Department of Justice has advised the Third Circuit that it will seek U.S. Supreme Court review.

The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 19, 2003, by Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), a groups of 24 law schools and law faculties opposed to military recruiters on college campuses, and its allies against Secretary Rumsfeld and five other cabinet officers in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. On Nov. 5, 2003, the District Court ruled against FAIR, upholding the law's constitutionality; FAIR appealed.

Mountain States Legal Foundation represents Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., a co-sponsor of what is often called the Solomon-Pombo Amendment, and will support the United States before the Supreme Court.

Mountain States Legal Foundation is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area.

(U.S.Newswire)

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