A state court judge ruled late Wednesday that the state law school in Buffalo, and presumably all public schools and universities in New York, must ban military recruiters as long as the military continues to discriminate against gay men and lesbians.
The ruling overturns a 1991 decision by the state Division of Human Rights. That decision said that a 1983 executive order by Gov. Mario Cuomo that prohibits state agencies from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation did not apply to military recruitment on campuses.The ruling is the first of its kind in New York, and one of the first in the country, said Evan Wolfson, senior staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented the lesbian law student who filed the suit.
If upheld by the state's appeals courts, the decision could have a far-reaching impact on military recruiting at state colleges, on Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at colleges and schools, and on Department of Defense research contracts awarded to state universities in New York.
A 1984 Pentagon directive prohibits the allocation of Defense Department funds to colleges that do not allow recruiting.
In 1991, the Defense Department sponsored $15.2 million in research programs on State University of New York campuses, almost half of it at the state university at Buffalo, according to a brief filed in the case by the university system.
Lawyers for the governor, the state university system and the Buffalo campus did not receive the ruling until Thursday afternoon. All declined to comment in detail Thursday until they could study it further.