"Some lawsuits deserve a fate worse than failure" Tom Smith

The Second Circuit has upheld denying federal funding to Yale Law School under the Solomon Amendment if YLS won't allow JAGs on campus to recruit.  Scott Johnson at Powerline just about says it all (via Instapundit).

I wrote about Yale and the FAIR litigation two years ago in "JAGs not welcome." In that column I concluded that some lawsuits deserve a fate worse than failure. While decent military officers like Brian Whitaker suffer the rudeness of their purported betters at Yale Law School and elsewhere in silence, the armed services of the United States are actively defending these schools from mortal peril. The rank ingratitude of those who should know better is a disgrace; it deserves to be widely recognized as such.

It's not that easy to capture the level of irony and hypocrisy in the, and here words fail me a bit, perhaps "pseudo-stand"? that the Yale Law School has taken on this one.  You start with the Navy.  They go out and often enough die, and very often spend years away from home in stress and danger, both so we don't have to, and so we don't have to learn German or watch our beautiful San Diego ladies don those parachute thingies, as the case may be, and it's always something.   So, the Navy and the rest of the armed forces put their money where their mouth is.  You have to give them that.  But this rather undeniably principled behavior gets no credit at Yale, because the armed forces abide by a rule, don't ask don't tell, which, as I recall, was imposed on them by a political decision made above their pay grade.  And whoever made the decision, and whatever the rule should in some absolute sense be, it is certainly not clear you would want law schools making military personnel policy.  I have seen law schools make personnel policy, and let's just say I don't want my liberty and security depending on law school decision making.

But OK, reasonable people can differ, and so Yale takes the "stand" that, trumpets please, No JAGs on campus, we shall not let them pass, this far and no further, damn the torpedoes and so forth.  Petitions are signed!  Buttons are worn!  Speeches are given!  It is all profoundly moving.  And then, Congress says, OK, fine, if you want to opt out of the freedom is not completely and utterly free, just a lot less expensive for some people than it is for others compact, you can do that, but just don't expect the United States to pay for it, OK? 

But wait!  That's different!  Surely you cannot expect this stand to be unsubsidized!  A fierce stand by flinty faced academics on principle is one thing.  To stand without hundreds of millions in federal largess is something entirely different.  Surely one cannot expect persons to go down to the sea in unsubsidized ships, and then go in fiscal harm's way.   Here we stand; we can do no other; unless of course it starts to get really expensive.   Anyway, you get the point.  If somebody has a point you disagree with, even profoundly, but they stand up for it bravely, they may earn a grudging respect.  But if they cop an utterly superior attitude, wrapping themselves in High Principle, and then fold when the stand starts to be costly, and when the attitude thereby copped was to be superior to people who die for what they believe in, and who make it possible for the rest of us not to die for what we believe in, it's not just beneath contempt, it's dizzying.

Comments

[Sam Goble]

That's the point though isn't it. The military, whether or not its mere existence offends you, operates on principles that can push its salaried employees beyond a pay check into the face of death. With academics, their proclaimed principles are rarely tested, they sit like legless men making glorious, principled statements. But in that rare opportunity to stand--when the consequences of principles come calling--they don't embrace it as sacrifice, they file a lawsuit, and decry it as unfair.

[dearieme]

I've spent much of my life among academics. Frequently they just make me want to spit.

[Jasmine]

Great point. I can't stand the hypocrisy either. Oh, and Go Navy.

[Jasmine]

Great point. I can't stand the hypocrisy either. Oh, and Go Navy.

[Michael Simpson]

Why the hell does the US government give Yale Law School $300 million anyway? Why does it need taxpayer money at all?

[krm]

Better yet, Congress should have declared war on Yale and sent the military in to conquer the place.

[Michael Simpson]

What, are you kidding? It would be a quagmire of unprecedented proportions! There'd be "insurgents" lurking about in the anthropology section of the bookstore and we can't get into nation-building - how could we contain the bloodshed that would inevitably follow between the Marxists and post-modernists?

[Gregory Saybolt]

I think Yale has had to suffer enough. It is located in New Haven.
Just kidding. (Kinda)

[krm]

Michael - I was hoping we wouldn't contain it. And I was viewing that as an added benefit, rather than a flaw.