With a Rebel Yale

To the Editor:

Hats off to the Supreme Court for its very sensible and just decision in upholding the controversial Solomon Amendment that requires all colleges and universities which accept federal funding to provide access to military recruiters.

And shame upon the pompous, self-important, so-called "academic elite" in this country for their arrogant sense of entitlement. If ever there was a more obvious attempt to "have your cake and eat it too."

Who do these people think they are? First of all, it is beyond hypocrisy for the faculty of Yale Law School to point their finger at the military for being unfairly exclusive.

I suppose they would have us believe that Yale Law School is not one of the most elite and socially exclusive institutions in this country!

And if discrimination and exclusion of certain groups is so intolerable to the academic elite, why not attack the problem closer to home? How about demanding that women are allowed into men's only college athletic teams, rather than the current "separate but equal" gender segregation we see in college sports teams?

Ever consider expanding your commitment to racial diversity to your cash-cow football and basketball teams? I don't see too many Asian, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern faces in the Big East, that's for sure.

I can't wait to see if Yale Law School professors remain committed to keeping military recruiters off campus on moral grounds now that it might cause them to lose out on some of Uncle Sam's bling-bling.

Please, please, please... if you're trying to make a serious argument, avoid the use of the word "bling-bling." It is virtually impossible to take anything else you say seriously if you refer to federal money using dated and cliché urban slang.

Outside of sounding stupid for describing federal funding in a manner better suited to Paris Hilton, the whole argument here is flawed on a number of levels. Obviously, the writer has a grudge against Yale. This is absolutely the standard for Syracuse, a city that holds intellectualism and wealth in equal contempt, let alone the combination of the two represented by Yale. Is Yale elitist? Certainly. It is a place open exclusively to the academic elite (and the idiot legacies of political dynasties). I've grown up in a place where hatred for the 'pompous, self-important academic elite' festers, despite the fact that the academic elite tend to be the most giving, charitable, and socially conscious group in the country. I have actually heard people in this community say that a person can get just as good an education in a state college as they'd have received at an Ivy League university, and they're not just blowing smoke. They actually believe it.

That said, my issue is not with the Supreme Court, which rightfully upheld the amendment, but with the amendment itself. It is simply flawed to believe that accepting federal money in some way puts any individual or organization at the mercy of the federal government. Should military recruiters be allowed into elementary schools to begin the process of recruitment early? Perhaps those who accept welfare money should be forced to have recruiters come to their homes and draft their children... after all, they accepted the federal money, so it's simply an arrogant sense of entitlement for them to believe that their children shouldn't be on the front lines.

On the other hand, why stop with military recruitment? If the university is receiving federal money, why not let the military take over the university entirely? They could do away with all those sissy liberal arts programs, and turn Yale into what the vast majority of other private universities have become: soulless job-training facilities. Wouldn't it be great to ensure that there was no longer a free intellectual community in this nation? Why should Yale get to cling to its values and traditions when so many other institutions have been forced to relinquish theirs to the insatiable god of profit?

Yale receives federal money because we, as a nation, recognize the importance of education for the next generation of leaders and decision-makers, not because we want to hold the university to government control. Other groups have been banned from university campuses for their discriminatory policies, including church groups and the Boy Scouts. The military only gets an exception because it is under federal control, though I fail to see why that fact grants them the right to invite themselves as guests to the home of an unwilling host. There are plenty of universities that would welcome military recruiters, but that isn't enough. They force themselves into places where they are unwelcome, shielded by federal funding that has nothing to do with them. That's where the shame lies.

Of course, a lack of understanding is what leads to agreeing with a policy like this, and that lack of understanding is made evident by the writer's sports analogies. It can be difficult for a person from Syracuse to understand that a university could consider academics and campus values more important than athletic teams. Syracuse University is a school where the head basketball coach is the highest paid university employee, where the Carrier Dome sports arena is the most recognized campus building, and where varsity athletes conspicuously drive the same expensive vehicles and are noticeably absent from classes they end up passing. Sports teams, while important to Yale's philosophy of the well-rounded student, are by no means closer to home or more important to the school than academic integrity and ethical standards. Yale is not a member of the Big East, nor are their sports teams the cash-cows a person from Syracuse might equate university teams to. The argument simply proves the isolationism of the writer, something that should surprise no one, given his take on the issue.

This is just another example of the anti-intellectualism that currently cripples this nation, and certainly the Central New York region. Ironically, however, by displaying the ignorance that comes with isolationism and anti-intellectualism, the writer actually makes a very strong case for the importance of maintaining a private, liberal university system, free from partisan government control.