Military recruiters cut short their visit to Stanford Law School on Monday after no prospective job candidates showed up for interviews -- only noisy protesters of the military's ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy for gays and lesbians."It was Mission Nothing Accomplished,'' said John Polito, 30, a gay law student who helped organize the afternoon protest rally and march.
"We're not anti-military. We're opposed to the policy that excludes gays,'' he said.
Stanford Law School does not permit recruiters on campus who discriminate. Like many other law schools, it contends that the Pentagon's policy violates its guidelines on non-discrimination.
But a 1997 federal law, called the Solomon Amendment, requires that campuses open their doors to military recruiters or risk losing federal grants. For Stanford University, this represents more than $700 million.
"The amount of research funding and other federal funding is so large that the university felt it couldn't risk that. If the law school rejected them, the entire university could lose,'' said Susan Robinson, associate dean for career services at the law school.
Five Stanford Law School students had expressed interest in jobs with the military's Judge Advocate General Corps.
The law school's policy is to invite an employer when at least five students request a visit.
But only one of the students followed up by scheduling an interview, and that student canceled.
Instead, the appointments were taken by gay students who used the time to debate with recruiters.
"We talked for 40 minutes,'' said Polito, a Cleveland native who dressed for his interview in a conservative shirt and tie. "I told them they'd do better by interviewing off-campus, at a hotel. They seemed fairly understanding."
"I told them I didn't want to go back into the closet to get a job. Because I'm gay, that avenue of work is closed to me.''
from San Jose Mercury News
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