The president of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights called on Northwestern students Friday to persuade the Law School to oppose the Solomon Amendment, requiring universities that receive federal funding to allow military recruiters on campus even though they discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Kent Greenfield, a Boston College Law School professor, spoke to more than 60 students Friday afternoon at the Law School’s Arthur Rubloff building on the Chicago Campus. The event was co-sponsored by the Stop Solomon Movement which is supported by 10 student groups, including OUTLaw, Law’s advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Greenfield called the amendment “a political effort to punish law schools for being what (lawmakers) thought as too liberal, too progressive.”

FAIR has launched a lawsuit against the government calling for the repeal of the amendment, Greenfield said. The group is a coalition of law schools and law school faculties including New York University, Fordham University and Georgetown University.

According to Stop Solomon representative Peter Friedman, a first year law student, “joining FAIR does not make Northwestern Law a party in the complaint, but would represent a public statement of opposition to the Solomon Amendment.”

Law School Dean David Van Zandt met with Greenfield Friday morning. Greenfield said he had felt the Van Zandt was supportive of joining FAIR, but Van Zandt said the breakfast was “a private conversation” and would not comment on what was said.

Van Zandt did say that whenever members of the U. S. Armed Forces come to campus to recruit students, he issues a statement informing students that the military does “not comply with the anti-discrimination policy of the Law School or the University with respect to sexual orientation,” but that “refusing to permit the military from recruiting at the law school, however, would subject the University as a whole to the loss of federal funding for student financial aid and other projects.”

Friedman said in an e-mail to THE DAILY that “by letting the military recruit on campus, Northwestern Law is saying that discrimination is okay. The amendment makes LGBT students feel like second class citizens because the school’s actions do not support its purported beliefs (in non-discrimination).”

Miriam Herrmann Szatrowski, a first year student, said she would “certainly support the Law School if they join FAIR.”

“I think its really important that they take a stand on this, otherwise they are not standing behind their non-discrimination policy,” Herrmann Szatrowski said. “I pay the same tuition as the straight students and that should give me equal access to career services, but if discriminatory employers can take those resources, its not fair treatment.”

According to Greenfield, a major problem with the amendment is that funding sanctions are not limited to the school that makes the infraction. If a law school refused to let the Judge Advocate General’s corps recruit on campus, funding for programs like missile research could be cut from the science department in the same university, Greenfield said.

When the Solomon Amendment was enacted in 1996, the government also could cut federal financial aid funds, but student outcry forced Congress to change the law to insulate that money in 1999, Greenfield said.

FAIR filed suit agains the government in September, Greenfield said, citing violations of free expression under the First Amendment and of due process under the Fifth Amendment.

Greenfield said the Department of Defense sent letters to several major law schools saying that if they did not treat military recruiters like all other recruiters, all federal funding would be cut. Close inspection of the amendment by Greenfield and some of his students showed that only Department of Defense funds could be cut.

“The court held that there was an interest on the part of the government in military recruitment that outweighed the First Amendment argument of the plaintiff,” Greenfield said, adding that universities are allowed to point out that military recruiters are discriminatory.

Greenfield said he thought the case was on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“If we lose, we’re going to appeal the case to the Supreme Court,” Greenfield said. “If we win, a federal statute will have been struck down and the government will probably appeal.”