Penn rarely feels compelled to raise its voice on issues facing the Supreme Court -- unless officials feel the school's academic freedom is being compromised.
Last week, for the second time in three years, the University filed a brief with the nation's highest court. This time, the official Penn position argued against the Solomon Amendment -- a law that requires universities to allow military recruiters on campus.
Signed by the University of Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown and Duke, this "friend-of-the-court" brief marks the rare instance in which Penn flexes its institutional muscle in an attempt to influence the Supreme Court.
In fact, Penn General Counsel Wendy White said, the University has filed only three amicus curiae briefs during her six-year tenure.
It is not uncommon, however, for universities with similar interests to file a brief together.
This summer, George Mason Law School Dean Daniel Polsby, along with representatives from Pepperdine University and University of Virginia, filed a brief supporting the other side of the Solomon case -- in support of the military's recruiting policy protected by the Solomon Amendment.
However, Penn rarely participates in similar legal action.
The last time the University signed an amicus brief headed to the Supreme Court was in 2003, in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action policies in admitting minority students.
That case received the largest number of amicus briefs in the history of the Supreme Court. Penn had weighed in on the issue before.
Penn Law professor Stephen Burbank said that the University also was a major driving force in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case in 1978 that set the current law on affirmative action -- which Penn now supports.
In 2001, when the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas entitled a Drexel graduate student a full refund of his tuition after he was dismissed from the school for not completing his dissertation, Penn -- along with other Pennsylvania institutions -- filed an amicus brief against the ruling at the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
The case raised important issues about the University's ability to make its own academic decisions.
Penn Law professor Kermit Roosevelt said that the fact that higher educational institutions like Penn take a stance on these cases "suggests that the elite educational institutions have a shared vision of academic freedom that they are trying to present."
White agreed, adding that though the University does not file an amicus brief very often, it takes action in the Supreme Court when it feels that the University is being affected and that it is important for Penn to speak up.
Academic freedom -- the freedom of speech, the freedom of an institution to teach and research in the areas that are of importance to academia and the freedom to maintain diversity within the student body -- is at the "absolute core" of the University's values, White said.
"Anytime the government encroaches on that right, the University gets sensitive and concerned. ... It grows out of our fear that the government will dictate what are good ideas," White said. "That is abhorrent to the notion of a modern university."
Anyone who has an interest in the case and feels the need to present an argument with a different perspective can file an amicus brief after asking for consent from the other party.
Consent is generally granted, "because refusing a consent makes it appear that a party is worried about what the amicus will say," Roosevelt explained.
The University's willingness to take a stand on the Solomon Amendment makes a major statement to the court.
"It is courageous for Penn to be involved, because Penn is one of the leading research institutions in the country and receives huge amounts of federal dollars for [its research] efforts," said Kathryn Kolbert, a researcher at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
