A very long time ago, most folks learned that if you regularly take money from someone, they can pretty well set any condition upon its continued receipt. For most of us, that lesson came in the form of parents punishing us by not paying us our allowance.

College and university administrators, along with law professors, are so far removed from the real world that they had forgotten this lesson that most folks learn by the time they are about seven-years old. The Supreme Court had to slap them upside the head with a unanimous 2x4 to re-teach that lesson.

The Supreme Court, in a case stemming from the military's policy toward gays, unanimously upheld today a federal law forcing colleges and universities to permit military recruiting on campus over their objections.

The universities, specifically law schools, had argued that making them host military recruiters on campus or lose federal funding was a form of "compelled speech" that made it appear that they were endorsing the government's exclusion of gays in the military, thus violating their rights of free speech and expression under the First Amendment.

What these over-educated idiots failed to recognize was that nobody was compelling these schools to do anything. All they had to do was get off the federal teat, and the requirement would disappear (presumably -- but more on that later). No, they wanted that cash and the right to cut the strings that went along with it. In that, they remind me of an old episode of the Andy Griffith Show, in which Opie argued he should get his allowance without doing any chores, since an allowance is money kids are "allowed" to have.

After all, nobody requires these schools to take federal grants for research, Pell grants, guaranteed student loan money, or other federal government cash that flows into their coffers. All they need to do is spend the endowment money to provide financial aid, and get private grants for research projects, and they would be free of the requirement to allow military recruiters on campus. No cash, no chores.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a unanimous court, swept their arguments aside.

The law, called the Solomon Amendment, "neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court. "Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military's congressionally mandated employment policy. . . .

"Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the military's policies," Roberts wrote.

The law regulates conduct, not speech, the court said. And unlike flag-burning, which is protected under prior decisions, the hosting of recruiters is not "expressive" conduct that sends out a message as a form of protest.

More to the point, their argument was bound to fail for the same reason that a school that claimed that ending seregation was compelled speech and a violation of freedom of association (and implicitly, freedom from association) would be bound to fail. In fact, these arguments parallel the arguments of segregationists quite nicely. Heck, upholding their position would have undone Title IX and the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that ended segregation in higher education.

And having brought such a frivolous argument forward, they got a decision that goes well-beyond what they complained about.

The U.S. Supreme Court sharply rebuked America's far-left law professors today, ruling unanimously (that's 8-0, Justice Sam Alito having joined the court too late to participate) that Congress was within its authority to withhold federal funding from law schools that discriminate against military recruiters. In the case, Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the court actually went further (citations omitted):

The Constitution grants Congress the power to "provide for the common Defence," "[t]o raise and support Armies," and "[t]o provide and maintain a Navy." Congress' power in this area "is broad and sweeping," and there is no dispute in this case that it includes the authority to require campus access for military recruiters. . . .

This case does not require us to determine when a condition placed on university funding goes beyond the "reasonable" choice offered in Grove City and becomes an unconstitutional condition. It is clear that a funding condition cannot be unconstitutional if it could be constitutionally imposed directly. Because the First Amendment would not prevent Congress from directly imposing the Solomon Amendment's access requirement, the statute does not place an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds.

That is, Congress could force colleges and universities, even if they receive no federal funding, to treat military recruiters equally. It's very impressive that Chief Justice John Roberts, Rumsfeld's author, was able to command unanimous support for such a sweeping decision.

In other words, Congress is within its power to require each and every college and university to allow recruiters on campus REGARDLESS OF THEIR TAKING FEDERAL MONEY. Not only did they roll snake-eyes in this crap shoot, the dice burst into flames and exploded when they came to rest on the table.

UPDATE: This gem from Chief Justice Roberts' opinion is pointed out by the proprieter of Okie on the Lam in LA

"…Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters, and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the military’s policies. We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policy… …Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

Ouch!

MORE AT: Colossus of Rhodey, Blogs for Bush, GOPBloggers, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Independent Conservative, Stop The ACLU, Iowa Voice, Publius Rendevous, Ace of Spades, Red State Rant, Yankee Sailor, Sister Toldjah, Random Thoughts Of Yet Another Military Member, Amy Proctor, Flopping Aces, Protein Wisdom, Left Wing = Hate, Small Town Veteran

OPEN TRACKBACKING: Conservative Cat, Mark My Words, Don Surber, Basil's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Third World Country