Jeff Sessions: We deserve to hear Kagan explain her actions at Harvard
Shortly after becoming Dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan kicked the military out of the school's recruitment office while our troops were putting their lives on the line in two wars overseas. Now that President Obama has nominated Ms. Kagan to the Supreme Court, her actions at Harvard must be closely examined.
As Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have pledged that Ms. Kagan will receive a fair and thorough hearing.
Because Ms. Kagan's legal record is thin -- she has never been a judge and practiced law for only two years -- her time at Harvard is especially significant. The question must be asked: what does Ms. Kagan's treatment of the U.S. military at Harvard say about her fitness to hold one of the highest positions in American government?
For years, many of our nation's elite academic institutions shamefully discriminated against the armed services. The situation escalated in the 1990s after Congress passed, and President Clinton implemented, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Harvard and other schools protested the policy by actively obstructing military recruitment. At these schools, major law firms and corporations were allowed to recruit officially on campus -- the U.S. military was not.
A law known as the Solomon Amendment was passed in 1995 and strengthened in 1999 to require universities to provide equal access to the military if they wished to keep their public funding.
Harvard disregarded the new law and continued to block the access of military recruiters. Finally, in 2002, the military had enough. Acting on the Solomon Amendment, the Department of Defense threatened Harvard with a loss of taxpayer dollars. The law school relented and the military was given full access.
That is the policy that Ms. Kagan inherited when she became dean in 2003. But instead of maintaining that policy, she reversed it -- once again stripping military recruiters of their institutional access.
Ms. Kagan did not go about these efforts quietly, but led a very public charge. She filed a legal brief in a distant circuit court to challenge the Solomon Amendment. Her goal was to free Harvard from the statute so that she could block military recruitment without jeopardizing the millions in taxpayer dollars that Harvard receives each year.
But the legal challenge failed and was met with unanimous rejection from the Supreme Court.
Simply put, Harvard was legally bound by the Solomon Amendment every single day that Ms. Kagan was Dean.
Support for the troops, and respect for the law, can't be set aside whenever politically convenient.
People can and will disagree on whether that disqualifies Ms. Kagan from serving on the Supreme Court, and she will have a fair opportunity to present her side of the story.
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will be holding the hearing for President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan.
