Kagan Defends Her Opposition To Army’s Policy On Gays
29 June, 2010—LA News Monitor
Supreme Court nominee Kagan has come out in full defense of her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to briefly prevent military recruiters from the school’s career services office because of the Army’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on gays. Kagan’s moves on briefly barring military recruiting at Harvard drew harsh criticism of her nomination. The Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican wasted no time to bring the issue during Kagan's confirmation hearing.
"The actions you took helped created a climate not healthy to the military on campus," Sessions said. "You were taking steps to treat them in a second-class way and not give them the same equal access because you deeply opposed their policy" on gays.
Kagan, however, also responded soon, sticking with her personal position against don't ask, don't tell policy. She further dubbed the controversial policy as “unwise and unjust”. She added that she "respects and reveres" the Army. At the point, Kagan couldn’t control her emotions and broke into tears following spate of controversies since she filed her nomination. "We were trying to do two things, to make sure military recruiters had full access to students and protect our anti-discrimination policy," she said of her opposition to the policy. "We tried to do both of those things."
Previous deans of the college had barred recruiters from the career services office. But then it granted the permission to recruit students under the sponsorship of a veterans' group on campus. The decision was in effect until 2002 when the Defense Department demanded the law school to allow military recruiters or it would be barred from receiving federal funding.
Meanwhile, session shot various questions on Kagan on her political views. Kagan was asked whether she agreed with the assessment of Ron Klain, an adviser to Al Gore in the Clinton administration, that she was a "legal progressive," and of Greg Craig, the former White House counsel in the Obama administration, that she was a "progressive in the mold of Obama himself." Kagan, however, dismissed the assessment attempts, saying, "I'm not quite sure how I would characterize my politics but one thing I do know is that my politics would be, should be, have to be, completely separate" from her work as a judge, she said. While "it's absolutely the case that I've served in two Democratic administrations," she added, "I honestly don't know what [the legal progressive] label means." People should be allowed to label themselves," she concluded.
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