Students collected at the Memorial Union’s Great Hall during the Multicultural Career Fair Wednesday afternoon to protest Army recruiting on college campuses.
Their efforts, however, were interrupted after one hour, when police arrived to disperse roughly 25 people, mostly composed of students from University of Wisconsin’s Stop the War, along with members from the Student Labor Action Coalition, Associated Students of Madison and International Socialist Organization.
The coalition of students began chanting in front of the “Navy Health Care Team” table, but was asked to stop. According to University of Wisconsin Police Department Lieutenant Bill Larson, students were asked repeatedly to stop, and officers arrested one female UW student. Larson added the students’ protest was impeding on recruitment activities. Organizations had paid $125 to set up booths at the fair. The Navy recruiters chose not to comment.
Students protested the military recruiters because of their discrimination policy against homosexuals and a focus on recruiting underprivileged, low-income individuals, according to UW alum Bill Linville.
“We don’t think the option should be to go kill in Iraq — a poverty draft,” Linville said. “We don’t want [recruiters] preying on folks who can’t afford education.”
The UW protest comes after several national incidents.
Students at Seattle Central Community College (SCCC) literally forced recruiters off campus Jan. 20, when bottles and newspapers were thrown at Army recruiters. The recruiters have since been allowed to return.
“We were really inspired by the Seattle thing,” Linville said.
However, universities are, for the most part, unable to ban college recruiters from campus due to the Solomon Amendment, which can deny federal funding from those universities not allowing recruiters or ROTC.
Since then, recruiters returned to SCCC without incident.
“The college will remain committed to protecting free speech by ensuring that people of all beliefs and ideals are able to express their opinions in an environment of dignity and respect,” according to a statement from SCCC.
The controversy of allowing military recruiters on campus began as early as the summer of 2003 when professors at Boston College, New York University, Georgetown and several other law schools came together as the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR). FAIR then took the matter of the Solomon Amendment to court and won in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
Lawyers argued the Solomon Amendment breached First Amendment rights of universities around the country.
However, according to Shara Frase, an associate with Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe, the government has stayed the decision and the Supreme Court is currently hearing the case. Additionally, Congress passed a nonbinding resolution Feb. 2 calling for the support of the Solomon Amendment.
“This decision threatens to severely damage the ability of the military to recruit the highly qualified candidates necessary during a time of war,” Congressman John Kline, R-Minn., said in a release.
Still, Frase said not every university wants to bar recruiters from their campuses — as Congress would have society believe — but simply wants the right to bar recruiters without penalties.
