AUGUST 5, 1994 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 7

Connecticut is second to bar military recruiters

Hartford, Conn.-A judge's decision to bar the armed forces from recruiting at the University of Connecticut Law School will help the movement against the military's new "don't ask, don't tell" policy, say gay

activists.

"It's just one more in a series of rulings across the country which shows Clinton's policy is unconstitutional and will be ultimately struck down," said David Smith, a spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Hartford Superior Court Judge Frances Allen permanently barred the military from recruiting at the law school, ruling that the Pentagon's new policy discriminates against gays and lesbians.

Connecticut state law bars state agencies and institutions from helping any employer that discriminates against gay people.

"The court is ... asked to determine whether, under the new federal act and Department of Defense directives, the military continues to discriminate based on sexual orientation. The court finds it does," Allen wrote in a seven-page decision issued July 18.

The ruling is the "first real declaration" that the new federal policy is discriminatory, said Ruth Harlow, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, which argued the case for the Gay and Lesbian Law Students Association.

Allen had issued a temporary injunction against military recruitment at the law school on October 14, 1992, before President Clinton's new policy on gays in the military went into effect.

By providing facilities and other assistance to military recruiters, the law school was violating Connecticut's gay rights law, the judge found.

Even though the ruling deals specifically with the University of Connecticut Law School in West Hartford, Harlow said it could affect other state university campuses. She said the employment offices at those schools should voluntarily bar military recruitment.

Pentagon warns New York

Connecticut is not the only state university system to tussle with the Pentagon over the issue of gays in the military.

Col. Doug Hart, a Pentagon spokesperson, said letters were sent by the individual branches of the armed services to State University of New York officials, warning them that millions of dollars in research grants could be in jeopardy if the military isn't allowed to recruit on SUNY campuses.

New York is the only state that bars recruiters from an entire college campus or university system while at the same time receiving military research grants, Hart said July 28.

The controversy arose last year after a Manhattan judge ruled that the military's ban against gays violated Gov. Mario Cuomo's executive order forbidding discrimination by any state agency toward gays and lesbians. Then-SUNY Chancellor D. Bruce Johnstone decided not to appeal the ruling and ordered campus presidents to ban military recruiters.

A 1973 Vietnam-era federal law allows the military to withhold grants from universities that ban the services from recruiting on campus. The Department of Defense has issued a directive notifying grant recipients that their funds will be sent elsewhere if they ban recruit-

ers.

Ken Goldfarb, a SUNY spokesperson, said the university system has no official policy that bars recruiters from state universities, and that SUNY administrators were merely adhering to the 1993 court ruling.

According to Goldfarb, the most recent figures show that SUNY was conducting $7.7 million in defense research. The research is being done at 10 campus sites, including SUNY's university centers located in Albany, Buffalo, Binghamton and Stony Brook.

Eighteen New York state senators, including GOP gubernatorial candidate George Pataki, have written to Cuomo in an effort to get him to abolish or change his executive order. With a number of lawsuits pertaining to the matter currently in federal courts, Cuomo is taking a wait-and-see approach.

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