Students and faculty at the Georgetown Law Center called on the university to repair wrongs done to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning community at a protest on Tuesday. They criticized the Law Center’s response to the Solomon Amendment, a federal law that allows the military to recruit on campus without signing Georgetown’s nondiscrimination policy. The policy prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The Solomon Amendment was passed in 1995. It allows the Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor to withhold federal funds from universities who deny military recruiters access to students.
Since the Defense Department threatened to withdraw federal funds, Georgetown has allowed military recruiters on campus.
Protesters want the Law Center to do more to combat the Solomon Amendment. “The American Association of Law Schools has imposed an affirmative duty on law schools to ameliorate [the discrimination],”said Michael Boucai (LAW ‘05).
According to Mark Tushnet, president of the AALS and a professor at the Law Center, this amelioration can come in the form of support for the LGBTQ community and notices disavowing the discrimination practiced by the military.
“I understand that they were acting under an extreme amount of coercion by the military,” said David Lane (LAW ‘06). However, Lane feels that the University can do more. “I think that Georgetown should be vocally, affirmatively and without any shame or anonymity doing everything it can to oppose the Solomon Amendment,” he said.
Approximately 50 protesters demonstrated in front the Washington Court Hotel, where recruiters from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps were interviewing students, according to the organizers. The rally was followed by a teach-in next to the Capitol building.
Protesters called on the Law Center to join a lawsuit filed by the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights against the Defense Department, alleging that it violates a university’s right to academic freedom, on Sept. 20.
“They can’t punish people for engaging in speech that they have a First Amendment right to engage in,” said Michael Seidman, a professor at the Law Center who participated in the teach-in.
FAIR is a coalition of anonymous universities. Michael Boucai (LAW ‘05), one of the protest’s organizers, said the university should join FAIR publicly.
“If one of these other categories [protected by the nondiscrimination policy] were being discriminated against, the least we do would be to litigate,” he said. “You can’t make atonement if you’re in the closet.”
Erin Ekeberg (LAW ‘05), who also helped organize the protest, agreed. “If somebody challenges [your nondiscrimination policy] and your first response is to let them, it’s not really a nondiscrimination policy. It’s kind of like a wish,” she said.
Some undergraduate students agree that Georgetown needs to take a public stand on this issue. “They should go back to the roots of Catholic teaching and embrace equality and love,” said Gladys Cisneros (SFS ‘04), who attended a similar protest at the Law Center last year.
Karane Williams, president of GUPride, said that Georgetown generally falls short of defending gay rights. “Georgetown is more apt to side with the right wing because of its monetary interests,” she said.
