In the past, universities like Harvard had banned military recruiters from their campus, while still enjoying federal tax money. With the passage of the Soloman Amendment, the federal government was able to tell these institutions of higher learning that if they wanted to ban the government from campus, they would no longer be able to accept federal funding. The law schools sued, naturally, and won.

The Boston Globe reports that Harvard didn't waste any time in reinstating their ban on military recruiters.

Harvard Law School will once again ban military recruiters because of the Pentagon's policy on gays in the military, the school's dean announced yesterday, the day after a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of the federal law that forced schools to allow the visits.

"This return to our prior policy will allow [the Office of Career Services] to enforce the law school's policy of nondiscrimination without exception, including to the military services," the dean, Elena Kagan, wrote in a brief statement late yesterday. "I am gratified by this result, and I look forward to the time when all law students will have the opportunity to pursue any legal career they desire."

Harvard had long barred military recruiters from formal campus visits because the Pentagon's ban on gays violated the school's nondiscrimination policies. Like many other law schools nationwide, Harvard was forced to allow the recruiter visits two years ago, when the government invoked a law known as the Solomon Amendment and threatened to cut the university's federal funding.

Such persecution. Poor Harvard was forced by the imperial federal government to allow military recruiters on campus, or face financial ruin with the loss of all those precious tax dollars. But now that they've won, Harvard can ban the evil, discriminatory, military machine while continuing to build their liberal utopia using federal tax money.

Despite what they say, I think it's obvious that Harvard is just anti-military and are playing the "gay card" to deflect criticism. Their claim to be such a staunch supporter of non-discrimination rings on deaf ears, especially considering their policy to openly discriminate in their hiring practices.

This is taken from the "Placement Goals" section (p 17) of Harvard's Affirmative Action policy:

Affirmative action has a central premise that an employer's workforce, over time, will reflect the gender, racial, and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the employer recruits and hires, in the absence of discrimination. Accordingly, as part of the federal contract obligation, contractors are required to determine whether women and minorities are "underutilized" in their employee work force (that is, if women and minorities are not being employed at a rate to be expected given their availability in the relevant labor pool). Where that is the case, the contractor is required to take practical steps to address such underutilization, including the development of placement goals.

The University has set goals to increase representation of minority and female employees where there is underutilization in its work force.

Perhaps the Pentagon should scrap the Clintonian policy of "don't ask, don't tell" in favor of Harvard's "underutilization" model. If the military set their utilization goals of heterosexual soldiers to 100% and altered their hiring practices to ensure compliance, maybe Harvard would come around.