The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that universities can bar military recruiters from campus and not lose federal funding as a result. The suit was brought by a consortium of law schools and legal scholars. They brought the suit because they object to the military's exclusion policy concerning gays and lesbians.

A 1995 law, known as the Solomon Amendment, bars the federal government from disbursing money to colleges and universities that obstruct campus recruiting by the military. As amended and interpreted over the years, the law prohibits disbursements to all parts of a university, including its physics department and medical school, if any of its units, like its law school, make military recruiting even a little more difficult.

Billions of dollars are at stake, and no university has been willing to defy the government. Indeed, several of the law schools that are members of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the group that sued to block the new law, have not been publicly identified.

The Court found the law violates the First Amendment's guarantee of the right to "convey a message opposing discrimination" and against compelled speech. Bottom line, according to the winning side:

"Enlightened institutions have a First Amendment right to exclude bigots. In a free society, the government cannot co-opt private institutions to issue the government's message."