CRS Recommendation: Summary of Rumsfeld v. FAIR
Introducing a new feature here at A Stitch in Haste.
I’ve become quite a fan of the Congressional Research Service’s “OpenCRS” project, in which they make available online the same reports, primers and briefing papers that they prepare for Members of Congress. They even have an RSS feed.
Whenever a report relevant to the topics I blog about becomes available, I will highlight it here and provide links.
Here is my first recommendation:
The Congressional Research Service has released a briefing paper on the pending Supreme Court case Rumsfeld v. FAIR, No. 04-1152, in which the Court will rule on the constitutionality of the so-called “Solomon Amendment,” 10 U.S.C. § 983. This law coerces colleges and universities to allow military recruiters onto their campuses by threatening to withhold all their federal funding, despite the schools’ policies barring employers that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (which of course the military does via “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”).
The report is a good summary of the issue and the litigation and is suitable for laypersons.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Rumsfeld v. FAIR on December 6.
For my blogposts on the case and DADT, see this chain.
Links to the briefs (all PDF files):
–Government’s Brief (53 pages)
–FAIR’s Response (62 pages)
–Government’s Reply (24 pages)
Similar Posts:
- One Quick Rumsfeld v. FAIR Comment
- Rumsfeld v. FAIR: Another “Lose the Battle, Win the War”?
- On the “Rumsfeld v. Dale” Question
- Is Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell “Sexual-Orientation Blind”?!?
- CRS Recommendation: The Law of Church and State
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just to be clear, OpenCRS isn't a project of the Congressional Research Service. It is a project of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit urging Congress to make CRS available to the public. The policy of Congress and that of the Congressional Research Service is to not provide direct access to CRS reports.