The Solomon Precedent

Twice a year, I open my mailbox to find an envelope from Captain Brian Sullivan at MIT, and twice a year, I hope in vain that, like my grandmother, he’s sending me a birthday card or an interesting article that he found in his local newspaper. I’m always disappointed, though, because I always find a photocopied letter that promises me thousands of dollars in scholarships, summer travel around the world, and an opportunity to serve my country. I just have to sign up for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), and the letter reminds me in big, bold letters: “What’s the catch? There is none!” Why, that’s swell.

There is a catch, of course, if you’re a boy who happens to dig other boys. So twice a year, I shred a letter and mail it back to Captain Sullivan with a polite request to be taken off his mailing list. It’s become something of a ritual, since I keep getting the letters, keep sending them back in tiny pieces, and keep getting stoic silence from Captain Sullivan. I’m sure he secretly enjoys it as much as I do, or else he’d probably stop wasting the military’s paper.

This year, our semi-annual exchange might take place in person. The Pentagon has finally threatened to enforce of the Solomon Amendment, a law passed in 1995 that allows the Secretary of Defense to revoke Department of Defense research contracts and grants to schools that bar military recruiters from campus. Initially, the law had little effect, since colleges, law schools, and business schools received precious little in the way of military research grants and could sacrifice funding to protect their gay and lesbian students. Over the years, subsequent amendments and interpretations have expanded the scope of the Solomon Amendment, and now all federal funding can be revoked from an entire university if recruiters are banned from one of its individual schools. During the summer of 2005, Harvard was informed that over $400 million in federal funding would be revoked if Harvard Law School did not reverse its ban on military recruiters who deny opportunities to openly queer students.

The University’s actions are unfortunate, but its predicament is a difficult one. Harvard’s research—especially its medical research—is too valuable to simply abandon, and a 15 percent decrease in Harvard’s annual budget could threaten countless jobs as well as necessary campus services. It’s hard to choose between lifesaving medical research and the equality of your students, and no educational institution should be forced into that position by the federal government, period.

The precedent is alarming. Nondiscrimination policies are not supposed to be suggestions; instead, they’re meant to act as recourse for students who are treated unfairly. MIT, for instance, has amended its non-discrimination policy with a footnote that reads, “The ROTC programs at MIT are operated under Department of Defense (DOD) policies and regulations, and do not comply fully with MIT’s policy of nondiscrimination with regard to sexual orientation. MIT continues to advocate for a change in DOD policies and regulations concerning sexual orientation, and will replace scholarships of students who lose ROTC financial aid because of these DOD policies and regulations.” The footnote ensures that the policy actually outlines the university’s stance on discrimination rather than merely providing loose guidance to its affiliates.

Every student, no matter how they feel about the military itself, should see the precedent as an especially unfortunate one. If you believe that Harvard has a duty to let its students join the military, there’s no logical reason why all students shouldn’t have the opportunity to serve. Pundits have argued that Harvard students are among the most talented in the nation and that the military needs them. This might be true, but by letting the military exclude some of these students from its recruitment, our nation loses highly-trained linguists, analysts, and soldiers. The illogic of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in this respect grows more obvious with every month that we face a recruitment shortfall.

If you believe that Harvard has a duty to promote pacifism, too, then equality should be a crucial first step. Even if every single queer student opted not to join the military, it should be a choice that they have to consciously make. I identify as a pacifist, and would almost always argue against armed conflict as a solution to global problems. It’s unfortunate, though, that I never really have to make that decision for myself and could publicly support a war with the full knowledge that I wouldn’t have to fight for my beliefs. This, perhaps, is why equality is important for all students in the military arena: it forces us to take stock of our world and invest ourselves personally in our politics.

Fundamentally, it will be a dangerous precedent if the government is able to tie federal funding to the whims of political opinion, invalidating the protection of the nondiscrimination code for all students. If the Pentagon really can take away massive grants that have literally nothing to do with the Department of Defense, there’s nothing but congressional restraint that stops them from changing any other university policy on a political whim. All students, whether queer or straight, conservative or progressive, powerful or powerless, should be concerned about the implications of that precedent for the sake of academic freedom and equality of opportunity. If you are, I’ve heard that there’s a captain over at MIT who positively loves getting mail.



Ryan R. Thoreson ’07 is a joint concentrator in government and women, gender, and sexuality studies in Lowell House. He is co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance.