Mara Gordon | Do ask, do tell

Friday was a peaceful day at Penn's Law School.

The sun was shining; there were rainbow flags everywhere. Students and professors milled around the building, wearing pink shirts and munching on free sandwiches.

It was a protest, but nothing was set on fire. No cops shot rubber bullets, no windows were smashed. The security guard at the building's entrance simply offered anyone who walked in a pink sticker that proclaimed "Shame on JAG." Signs urged passersby in brightly colored letters to "Do ask, do tell."

This is activism, Penn Law style - and it's exactly what our generation should be doing to get our voices heard.

The students, faculty and administrators were protesting the presence of a man named Jon Pavlovcak in a small conference room in the Biddle Law Library. Quiet and unassuming, Pavlovcak recruits new lawyers to join the Judge Advocate General's Corps, the legal wing of the U.S. military.

And as long as the military doesn't let gays and lesbians into its ranks, Penn Law doesn't want recruiters like Pavlovcak on campus.

Friday's protest was the latest episode in a struggle between universities and the military that has gone on for the past several years. Accredited law schools - like Penn's - aren't allowed to let employers that discriminate recruit on campus.

Unfortunately, the federal government disagrees. If a university receives federal funding, the Supreme Court ruled last year, it's required to let the military recruit on its campus. Since Penn gets millions of government dollars, Pavlovcak's presence is a reality.

Lambda Law - the organization for LGBT law students - and Penn Law administrators are working within the system to change this. And slowly but surely, they're showing the military that this nation's young lawyers aren't interested in working for somebody who discriminates.

"We're allowing the military in - under protest," Penn Law's Dean Michael Fitts told the crowd on Friday. "We all look forward to the time when the military allows in its ranks all the wonderful people who are being discriminated against."

Pavlovcak had a full schedule interviewing JAG candidates on Friday, he said. When he arrived there were no blockades, only pink hoodies and polo shirts, signs with slogans like "You give medals for killing men and discharges for loving them."

"Penn Law students tend to be very open-minded, very gentle," said George Clinton, the Law School's associate dean for student affairs. He is openly gay and provided the rainbow flags for the protest from his own activist days.

"They're not here to stop people from interviewing," Clinton continued. They're here "to say to the military, 'You're not here with open arms.'"

That's because Pavlovcak himself is not the problem. Targeting him personally would be a waste of Lambda Law's resources and would de-legitimize their cause.

"I go where I'm supposed to go to do the job I'm supposed to do," he said on Friday.

He didn't plan on interacting with the protestors. Instead, he said, "I'm anticipating going home - getting in my car and seeing my wife and daughter."

Three of the appointments in Pavlovcak's busy schedule were protest interviews, a widely used strategy where law students schedule meetings with a recruiter and don't show up.

At other schools, protest interviewees have even been known to cover their mouths with duct tape as a dramatic gesture of what it feels like to be closeted.

Some Lambda Law protestors showed up to their interviews on Friday, and told Pavlovcak exactly what they thought of "don't ask, don't tell," the military policy that prevents gays and lesbians from coming out.

The protest interview is exactly the kind of tactic Lambda Law should be using in a fight like this one. Pavlovcak said the signs and speeches don't "faze" him, but the protest interviews do waste his time and the government's money.

For the time being, the military, in all its anti-gay glory, will recruit at Penn. It will refuse to hire qualified lawyers because they are out as gays and lesbians, and it will continue to perpetuate homophobia in our country.

But soon, recruiters like Pavlovcak will get sick of seeing protests in their honor. They will grow tired of spending their days in empty conference rooms, waiting for interviewees who don't show up. They will regret losing qualified LGBT applicants to employers that don't discriminate.

Penn and Lambda Law have the right idea in taking a practical stance on this issue. The military won't change its policy tomorrow, but thanks to their activism, they can slowly chip away at it.

Mara Gordon is a College junior from Washington, D.C. Her e-mail address is gordon@dailypennsylvanian.com. Flash Gordon appears on Thursdays.

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