GOP Should Vote "No" on Kagan

Solicitor General Elena Kagan's decision to exclude military recruiters from campus when dean of Harvard Law School is reason enough for Republicans to vote against her nomination.

Justice John Paul Stevens is the last World War II veteran on the Supreme Court.  President Obama wants his replacement to be a woman who would have barred Dwight D. Eisenhower from recruiting on campus at Harvard.  This is a scandal.  Solicitor General Elena Kagan was the dean of Harvard when the relentlessly left-wing faculties of the major law schools, but particularly Harvard and Yale, determined to have the Solomon Amendment overturned as unconstitutional before the Supreme Court.

The Solomon Amendment prohibited universities that excluded military recruiters from campus from receiving federal funds.  The law schools, while welcoming Bill Clinton to campus, barred the military which merely implemented his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law.  The howls of the Left toward the Solomon Amendment were incredible even though the bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.  To my knowledge not one professor from Harvard or Yale signed or contributed an amicus brief supporting this statute at the core of Congress’s power of the purse.  Kagan supported briefs opposing the law.  That is, she took the position that the cosseted universities could take billions in taxpayer money while excluding the military from recruiting on campus solely because it followed the law the administration she worked for passed.

In the Supreme Court the law was upheld 8-0 with one recusal.  That means that no one on the Court supported the ludicrous contention that one could take federal funds while excluding military recruiters from campus for following the law.  Harvard, the wealthiest university in the country, sullenly complied rather than fall back on its own resources.  Federal money was more important than gay rights.  Harvard’s precious “first amendment rights” were only important if someone else paid for them.  Ought this to be disqualifying to General Kagan’s campaign for the Supreme Court?  The answer is yes.  There are only two possible causes of her actions in the Solomon Amendment circumstance.  Either she knew it was ludicrous but signed on through peer pressure, or she thought it was a good argument.  Either view is a good reason to oppose her nomination.  There are more reasons to do so but this alone ought to draw a rebuke from every Republican in the Senate.

The defense that lawyers take all kinds of cases is a joke here.  She was a law school dean, not a lawyer in private practice asked to help a firm client.  Her choice of causes in this instance is instructive.  Justice Stevens voted to uphold a law criminalizing desecration of the American flag.  Justice Stevens upheld the Solomon Amendment.  Justice Stevens was respectful of the traditional deference on military matters the Court exercised until recently.  On evidence here Justice Kagan will make the military another hot house of experimentation in the Left’s theory of sexual politics.  This is reason enough for any Republican to vote against the nomination.