Harvard Can Kiss My Ass Too

Here's the kind of story I'd like to see more of in the news. Reported in the Birmingham News on February 9:

An Alabama federal judge has told Yale Law School he won't accept its graduates
for clerkships because the school blocks military recruiters from campus. Senior U.S. District Judge William Acker Jr., a Yale graduate, explained his decision in a Monday letter to the law school's Dean Harold Koh. Acker wrote that he was exercising the same freedom of speech that U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall supported when she ruled Jan. 31. She backed the faculty's claim that their rights to free speech were violated by enforcement of the Solomon amendment, which requires schools to provide access to military recruiters or lose federal funding, including student loans.
In response, Acker said Yale Law School students need not apply. "Some of my very best law clerks have been from the law school from which I proudly graduated," Acker said. "I therefore recognize that this publicly announced decision will hurt me more than the allowing of military recruiters would hurt YLS."

What I enjoy about reading this article is seeing Yale, that bastion of liberal academics, pay some price, any price for its political stance. Yale graduates will have one less job available to them. A small victory, but it's a start.

I wouldn't deny professors academic freedom. Not even fuckwits like Ward Churchill. Academic freedom is necessary to add to the storehouse of human knowledge. Yale's ban on military recruiters is not about academic freedom though -- it's simply discrimination. Plain and simple. Yale discriminates against the military. It's not illegal, like racial discrimination. However, Yale -- center of free thinking -- has made a value judgment about military service -- and decided that Yale must be insulated from military recruiters -- because the military, despite its "don't ask, don't tell policy" doesn't allow homosexuals to serve. This is institutional discrimination on Yale's part. It's the old "Two Wrongs Make a Right Doctrine."

This wouldn't normally bother me, except Yale is getting to have its cake and eat it too. When Yale banned recruiters, it forfeited federal funds -- a fair penalty which George W. Bush is enforcing. Although the military is not good enough for Yale, Federal money certainly is. Yale faculty members sued claiming the government had infringed on free speech rights. And guess what, they got Federal District Court Judge Janet C. Hall to agree with them. In case you were wondering, she's a Clinton appointee.

With any luck, Judge Hall will be reversed soon. Yale should be taught a lesson that free speech is not necessarily cheap. Yale, like so many other universities, is dominated by liberal faculty. At my own university, nowhere near as prestigious as Yale, I was taught by people who were communists. I don't mean they acted like communists, they WERE communists -- card carrying members of the American Communist Party. I suspect Yale has produced its fair share of these types too, who believe they know what's best for all of us. Check out the webpage for the Yale Liberal Party, whose recent discussions include"John Kerry is a Douche Bag, but I'm Voting for Him Anyway." Inspiring.

When it comes right down to it, in my humble opinion, Yale and its law school are big clubs, where getting in is the most important thing. The law school grading is pass/fail. Come on! Yale graduates are not special people who are better than the rest of us. They just had the right connections. Had the editors of the "Idiom" gone there, we'd be running the "Daily Show" instead of blogging.

So please excuse me if I enjoy this minor set back for Yale. I find it delicious that Judge Acker and George W. Bush, both Yale graduates are making things a little harder on the old alma mater these days. Maybe now that its being attacked by its own, Yale will stop paying lip service to diversity and let some people with common sense teach and attend there too.

Assist via Parkway Rest Stop.