With over $500 million in annual funding at stake, a group of students and professors from the Law School filed suit against the Department of Defense yesterday.
Their suit, which closely follows a similar one filed by a group of law schools and professors from around the country, claims that the military should not be permitted to recruit on campus because of its discriminatory policy toward gays.
"When the summer break ended and people were gathering, we began to talk about it and now we're ready, so we're going ahead," Law School Professor Howard Lesnick said.
Under the Solomon Amendment, which conditions federal funding based upon the military's ability to recruit students from university campuses, the Law School is forced to provide resources to military recruiters.
Each year, the University receives over $500 million in federal funding, which can be revoked if the Department of Defense does not believe it has full access to students from the University.
However, the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy -- which discriminates against openly gay individuals -- directly conflicts with the Law School's nondiscrimination policy.
Typically, the Law School will not allow employers to recruit on campus if students will be subject to discrimination.
However, the federal government essentially forces the Law School to allow judge advocate general recruiters on campus by threatening to withdraw all federal funding from the University.
The suit first seeks to establish that Penn's five-year policy of allowing military recruiters to use University resources, rather than specifically Law School resources, "fully complies with" the Solomon Amendment, Law School Professor Stephen Burbank said.
However, the group has also prepared "secondary" constitutional arguments that claim that the Department of Defense compromises Penn's First Amendment rights by preventing the Law School from executing its nondiscrimination policy.
In a news statement, Burbank emphasized that "the defendant's current interpretation of the Solomon Amendment serves no legitimate governmental interest."
In addition, he added that forcing the Law School to violate its own policy raises questions among students and faculty that "poison the academic enterprise and make more difficult teaching and learning in pursuit of equal justice under the law."
According to Lesnick, the suit has been in the works, in one form or another, since 1998. In that year, when the Law School was first forced to respond to the amendment, a similar group was "on the verge of filing suit."
However, the Law School was able to avoid conflict by allowing the military to use University recruiting facilities and personnel rather than Law School-specific resources.
Earlier this year, though, the military decided that it was not being given a fair opportunity to recruit Penn Law students, and the Air Force responded with a letter of inquiry in the spring.
Again faced with the possibility of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funds, the Law School allowed an Air Force JAG representative to use Law School resources to recruit students.
Law professors began to convene over the summer and discussed the possibility of filing suit against the Department of Defense.
With the beginning of the school year, those plans solidified.
Students and other Penn community members also rallied for the cause last month, when they held a protest march while the on-campus recruiting was in progress.
Though the Law School is not a plaintiff in the case, administrators have been aware of the case for some time.
"The Dean of the Law School... is aware that a number of faculty members have been planning to file a lawsuit from the beginning," Lesnick said.
However, administrators could not be reached for comment.
