and she had such a problem and she worked for him and wanted to kick the military off of her campus recruiting office and she said they had equal access through this veterans and recruiting went up during my tenure and critics said thanks to the hustle of the veterans, that is why the numbers went up, she cannot take credit for that. martha: it is interesting, and, he was narrowing it down to that, how do you feel about the military, when given the opportunity to work with them you gave them the run around, he said, and she said i revere the military and he said i m not sure, which i thought, he was and he said you treated them like second-class citizens and his point is, you gave them access and it wasn t equal access and that what is the solomon amendment, which was they re because colleges across the country were kicking the military off campus because of don t ask, don t tell and congress passed a law saying you allow them equal access for recruiting otherwise you don t get fed
students know that the military recruiters were going to be at harvard during that recruiting season and military recruiting went up that year, not down. so you re exactly right, that the supreme court did reject our amicas brief. again, we filed an amicas brief not attacking the constitutionality of the solomon amendment but instead saying that essentially the harvard policy complied with the solomon amendment, the supreme court rejected it 9-0, unanimously. but even before that the military said the law was still in effect, harvard had no right to get around it, and they should comply even before the supreme court issued a ruling, and they had to contact the university s counsel and the president, mr. larry summers, and mr. summers agreed that the military should have full and equal access before even the supreme court ruled. but after you had denied
treating them as second class citizens, bat giving them equal access because you deeply opposed that policy. why wouldn t you complain to congress and not to the dutiful men and women who put their lives on the line for america every day? senator session, you re of course right that the solomon amendment is law, passed by congress how much i honored everybody who was associated with the military, on the harvard law school campus. all that i was trying to do, was to ensure that harvard law school could also comply with the anti-discrimination policy, a policy that was meant to protect all of the students of our campus, including the gay and lesbian students, who might very much want to serve in the
military. who might very much want to do that most honorable kind of service that a person can do for her country. that s a legitimate concern and people can disagree on that and i respect your view on that, i m having difficulty with why you would take the steps of treating the military in the second class way to speak to rallies and send out e-mails, and to immediately, without legal basis, because the solomon amendment was never, at any time, not enforced as a matter of law, why would you do all of those things, simply to deny what congress required that they have equal ac as anyone else? senator, the military at all times during my deanship had full and good access. military recruiting did not go down, indeed, in a couple of years including the year that you are particularly referring
views? certainly you don t think he was attempting to embarrass you or hurt new that process, do you? i love my good friend ron claim, but i guess that people should be allowed to label themselves, and that s you know, i don t know what that label means, and so i guess i m not going to characterize it one way or the other. i would just say having looked at your overall record, having considered those two people who know you very well, i think you have to classify you i would have to classify you as someone in the theme of the legal progressives. now, one of the things that we want to test, i guess, is your willingness to follow the law, even if you might not agree with it. and senator leahy has asked you about harvard and the military. isn t it true, isn t it a fact, that harvard had full