SAN FRANCISCO - Some gay activists cried ''homophobia'' when ''Crash,'' a movie about racism, edged out ''Brokeback Mountain,'' a film about two cowboys in love, to win the best-picture Oscar last Sunday. But this week's real disappointment for many gay and civil rights organizations came from the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, the court--siding firmly with the government--ruled that colleges must allow military recruiters on campus and must treat them equally as other recruiters. It upheld a 1996 law, called the Solomon Amendment, which allows the Secretary of Defense to deny federal funding--often worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars--to colleges that bar recruiters.

In so doing, the justices rejected arguments that the military violates the schools' anti-discrimination regulations because of its ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy towards gays. Established in 1993 by the Bill Clinton administration, this bars the military from asking about service members' sexual orientation but allows the armed forces to throw out personnel who reveal their homosexuality through word or deed.

Under ''don't ask, don't tell,'' the U.S. military has discharged more than 8,700 lesbians, gays, and bisexuals since 1994, according to Georgetown University's law school.

Rights groups voiced discontent with the ruling, saying that by maintaining a discriminatory policy towards lesbian and gay people, the military did not play by the same rules as other employers that send recruiters to colleges.

''The American government shouldn't be in the business of sidestepping anti-discrimination policies,'' Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. ''This case didn't even address the military policy keeping recruiters at bay from thousands of patriotic Americans who want to serve but can't.''

''With substantial support for overturning 'don't ask, don't tell,' it's past time for the military to level the playing field. Americans don't care if the person who catches Osama bin Laden is gay or straight; they just want him caught,'' Solmonese added.

The case, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic Institutional Rights (FAIR), pitted an association of 35 law schools and their faculties against the Pentagon. The schools had sought to keep recruiters off campus and out of job fairs without sacrificing federal money.

Backed by the Association of American Law Schools, FAIR based its case on the idea that coercing schools to invite military recruiters onto campus constitutes an unconstitutional form of compelled speech and viewpoint discrimination.

But John Roberts, in his first major opinion as chief justice, rejected that argument.

The hosting of employers and recruitment officers at a job fair is not a form of speech but a form of conduct, Roberts said, adding that most students realize employers at school fairs do not represent the school itself. Roberts said a federal appeals court's decision in favor of FAIR had misunderstood the Solomon Amendment.

''As a general matter, the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech,'' the chief justice said. ''It affects what law schools must do--afford equal access to military recruiters--not what they may or may not say.''

The military interviews about 2,500 law students each year and hires about 400 for its Judge Advocate General Corps, according to the Pentagon.

Yale University law professor Robert Burt said he worried that the breadth of Monday's ruling gives the federal government too much power and could open the door to federal legislation mandating universities to offer military preparedness courses.

Speaking for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which had filed a brief in support of FAIR, legal director Steven Shapiro said ''universities should not be punished by the loss of their federal funding merely because they apply the same non-discrimination policies to the military that they apply to every other employer that seeks to recruit on campus.''

Peace activists said they had hoped for a ruling in favor of FAIR because ''we do not believe military recruiting, especially the very aggressive tactics used by the armed forces to target poor people and people of color, brings anything positive to a learning environment,'' said Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice.

''We must separate out education from military recruitment,'' Cagan told OneWorld.

The ruling is not expected to have any drastic effects: According to the Defense Department, only three schools were not in compliance with the Solomon Amendment prior to the ruling.

Even so, it is seen by many as a key skirmish in a larger war against the military's policy towards sexual minorities.

Monday's ruling also drew applause as a victory for national security and for the military, which has faced problems recruiting enough troops to fight in Iraq.

''At a time when our military is trying to attract the best and the brightest of our young people, it makes no sense to bar recruiters from college campuses--especially when federal funds are used to support these schools,'' said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice.

Rumsfeld v. FAIR was not the first case of its kind. In 2004, 45 professors won a lawsuit against the Pentagon in Burt v. Rumsfeld after the federal government threatened to cut funding to Yale University if the school did not admit military recruiters on campus.

Ultimately, the plaintiffs won an injunction allowing Yale to keep out recruiters, in acknowledgement of the military's unfair policy towards gays. The ruling is being appealed in federal court.

In a twist welcomed by some rights and peace groups, the Supreme Court ruling affirmed schools' right to publicly disavow the military policy on gays and even to help organize student protests without jeopardizing their federal funding.

Copyright © 2006 OneWorld.net.

###