'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' repeal sparks Penn reaction

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — enacted into law in 1993 — was repealed yesterday, ending a long-time disagreement between the federal government and gay rights activists, as well as the Penn community.

The policy’s repeal allows gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals to serve freely in the military without fear of being discharged if their sexual orientation is discovered.

“This change is way overdue,” Demie Kurz, Sociology professor and Co-Director of The Alice Paul Center on Women, Gender and Sexuality, said in an email.

However, the issue is not new to Penn’s administration. In September 2005, Penn joined with Columbia, Cornell, New York, Chicago, Harvard and Yale universities on an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court regarding DADT. The universities wrote in opposition of the policy’s Solomon Amendment, which “provides for the Secretary of Defense to deny federal funding to institutions of higher learning if they prohibit or prevent ROTC or military recruitment on campus.”

Many universities, including Penn, thought that the amendment forced them to break their own non-discriminatory policies and thereby denying the school’s First Amendment rights.

“It’s an important priority for Penn because we have a policy that says that recruiters on our campus should not discriminate,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said in a 2005 article of The Daily Pennsylvanian.

Now, six years later, the DADT policy has been repealed, rendering the Solomon Amendment moot. “There is a long history of challenges to the University regarding the Solomon Amendment … [the repeal] is pretty consequential,” Director of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center Robert Schoenberg said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

“It’s a great and very positive step forward from the military and embracing the diversity already present within the population that the military is serving,” Political Affaris Vice-Chair of the Lambda Alliance Victor Galli said. “This creates a framework for the military to support or rather end discrimination with those that have a diverse sexuality background.”

However, Galli made it clear that the fight is not over. Gays and lesbians can now freely serve in the military, but there is still no framework for transsexuals in the military. “We are thrilled that this is a step forward,” Galli said. “However, we just want to caution that this is not the end, this is the beginning. This is the beginning of the government as a whole, every branch of government seeing the tangible implementation of policy embracing sexual and gender diversity.”

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