Many law schools have blocked military recruiting on campus to protest the military's ban on openly homosexual servicemembers

* Many law schools have blocked military recruiting on campus to protest the military's ban on openly homosexual servicemembers. Washington reacted by cutting off funds for schools that adopt that tactic. Now federal judges have ruled Washington's reaction unconstitutional. The theory is that the schools have a kind of freedom of association, just as the Boy Scouts do when they exclude gay Scoutmasters.

We think it's a stretch from freedom of association to a right to receive government subsidies, and the ruling is even more of a stretch given that the Constitution does not mention freedom of association explicitly. (Sorry, Scouts.) The lawyer for the schools, E. Joshua Rosenkranz, exulted in the ruling in terms guaranteed to erase any doubts that the schools' policy is obnoxious: "Enlightened institutions have a First Amendment right to exclude bigots." We are now deprived of the opportunity to learn how willing our elite law schools would be to take their brave stands of principle were there money at stake. Perhaps the theorists can take up this question in the law reviews.