Court halts enforcement of law penalizing schools that bar military recruiters

An appeals court on Monday barred the Defense Department from withholding funds from colleges and universities that deny access to military recruiters. The third U.S. circuit court of appeals said a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment infringes on the free speech rights of schools that have limited on-campus recruiting in response to the military's ban on gays. Ruling in a lawsuit brought by students and professors at New Jersey law schools, a three-judge court panel said that the threat of a withdrawal of federal funds amounted to compelling the schools to take part in speech they didn't agree with. "The Solomon Amendment requires law schools to express a message that is incompatible with their educational objectives, and no compelling governmental interest has been shown to deny this freedom," the court wrote. By a 2-1 vote the panel overturned an earlier decision by a federal judge that the people challenging the law were unlikely to prevail at trial. Similar suits have been filed around the country, but Monday's ruling represented the first time a court had enjoined the government from enforcing the law.