[Note from Evan: This is Jenny Blair, and she's going to be pitching in a bit with the writing around here. Welcome her!]
One of only two law schools in the nation to have denied military recruiters access to its campus during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era recently announced it will lift its ban once DADT is repealed in September.
Unlike the overwhelming majority of American law schools, the Vermont Law School has kept recruiters off its campus because the military’s barring of openly non-heterosexual people violated a non-discrimination policy that the school adopted in 1985. That lack of hypocrisy cost VLS dearly–to the tune of some $500,000 a year in federal funds since 2000–when the Defense Department decided to withhold federal funding from all universities of which any part prohibited military recruiters. [The Defense Department can do that because of the Solomon Amendment, which prevents schools from receiving federal funding if they don't allow military recruiters on campus.]
In other words, the students, faculty, and trustees of Vermont Law School said no thanks to over $5 million in order to uphold the school’s own stated principles. Who says lawyers’ loyalties are for sale? Bravo, VLS.
Full justice in DADT repeal must include full retroactive reinstatement of benefits for all persons discharged only for being gay (including people discharged for that reason prior to DADT) and for them to receive compensatory and punitive damages for the discrimination suffered. Vermont Law School should join in that legal action. And, it should not allow military recruiters on campus until that action has been settled to the victims’ satisfaction. Many service members discharged only for being gay were discharged with no money, no housing, no health care . . just tossed out on the streets with a dishonorable discharge. The injustice inflicted on them is not addressed by repealing DADT. By allowing military recruiters back on campus, Vermont Law School is enabling the society to sweep those unjusticies under the carpet, as though the society owed the victims nothing.
Hi Jenny! Welcome!
Wow! How interesting. Thanks for posting this–so important to know about! Cool to see schools take a stand on something so important.
Justice will not be served until your trans brothers and sisters can join you.
DADT may not apply to us, but rather, that would require Gender Identity Disorder to be removed from the DSM, and then it would still require additional action, I’m sure.
[...] vast amounts of federal money by doing so, thanks to the Solomon Amendment. Vermont Law School has blazed this trail, forgoing millions in favor of upholding its own ethics code. But as one commenter has pointed out [...]