anti-terror investigators: Gay law school groups a "credible threat"

[MidwestTransplant]

Pentagon anti-terror investigators labeled gay law school groups a "credible threat" of terrorism

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/pentagon-anti-terror-investigators.html

Sources that show the Pentagon keeping tabs on gay groups include this news report:
A secret Pentagon document obtained by NBC News reveals that the military has been spying on what they call "suspicious" civilian meetings - including many "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" protests.

Only eight pages from the four-hundred page document have been released so far. But on those eight pages, Sirius OutQ News discovered that the Defense Department has been keeping tabs NOT just on anti-war protests, but also on seemingly non-threatening protests against the military's ban on gay servicemembers. According to those first eight pages, Pentagon investigators kept tabs on April protests at UC-Santa Cruz, State University of New York at Albany, and William Patterson College in New Jersey. A February protest at NYU was also listed, along with the law school's gay advocacy group "OUTlaw," and was classified as "possibly violent."

All of these protests were against the military's policy excluding gay personnel, and against the presence of military recruiters on campus. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network says the Pentagon needs to explain why "don't ask, don't tell" protesters are considered a threat.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

1. Credible threat? A bit extreme, no?

Look, these law schools are wrong to ban the military because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Congress sets policy), but these schools are hardly a terror threat.

[MidwestTransplant]

2. So say you.

The rest of us here and the rest of America know that anybody who would defy the admin. present credible threats of terrorism.

[eyesroll]

3. Why are they wrong?

Their rules state that organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (in addition to sex, religion, race, etc.) cannot recruit on campus. So, the law offices of Homophobe, Bigot and Ass-Grabbing Womanizer will need to look elsewhere.

The military is an organization that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. Why should they get special treatment? Most schools do give them special treatment (do any schools outright ban the military?), because the government blackmails them into it by threatening to drop their funding. Schools where protestors greet the military are, by definition, giving the military special treatment to allow them to be there in the first place.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

5. But it's Congress that sets the policy.

We still have a civilian controlled military. I just think it's wrong to punish them for something they have no real control over.

[eyesroll]

7. It's hardly punitive -- it's not like law students don't know about the

military, or can't get in other than through on-campus recruiting.

It's enforcing a policy evenly.

Kids who don't have signed permission slips don't get to go on the field trip. If the parent (Congress) refuses, the student (military) really has no control over it, but the school would still enforce the policy evenly.

[Lex]

4. Law Schools should be able to ban who they want to (they set the policy)

and they aren't a terror threat clearly.

[readmoreoften]

6. Wow, I'm on the NYU OUTlaw listserve.

Does that mean I'm being spied on? Probably.