Protestors Agree: College Not Combat

This protest and similar ones across the country coincided with the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of arguments for and against the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment in Rumsfeld v. FAIR (Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights). Enacted in 1995 and named after its sponsor Gerald Solomon, a Republican from New York, the Solomon Act is a federal law allowing the Secretary of Defense to deny federal grants to institutions of higher education if they prohibit or prevent military recruitment on campus.

But violence is not what we should be teaching our children, said guest speaker Aimee Allison, with Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. A veteran of the Persian Gulf War, she argued that schools should be a place for perusing education and for looking creatively at the world around them.

“We need to get in the faces of these recruiters and say “Get the Hell out,”” Allison said. “They can not be allowed to bring their violent practices to our learning institutions.”

Julia Waters, a member of United Students for Global Justice, agreed and said that their doing so is merely an intimidation tactic used so they can maintain ranks.
“But they’re not going to maintain them for much longer because people have doubts – they have doubts about our government and the general legitimacy of our going to war,” Waters said.

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