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Sessions Tells Senate He Will Vote Against Kagan
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, a number of comments have been made about Ms. Elena Kagan's actions at Harvard in barring the military from utilizing or having access to the Career Services Office and asking the veterans
[Page: S6628] GPO's PDF
group--that was not able, as they said--to somehow fill that role.
I will take a few minutes, as we have a few minutes left, to deal with one of the arguments I have heard my colleagues repeat; that, well, she did not reduce recruiting, therefore, no harm, no foul. I do not agree. There was a foul and there was a harm. But even if there had not been a harm, there was a foul.
It was very wrong to blame the U.S. military for the don't ask, don't tell policy, and very, very, very wrong to blame some young officer who was there to recruit people to serve in the JAG Corps of the U.S. military, perhaps having just returned from combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, and to be told: You can't come in the front door of the building. You can't use the recruiting services because we don't like your policy.
But it was not the military's policy; it was the Congress's policy. It was President Clinton's policy. He signed the bill. I do not believe that Ms. Kagan complained to President Clinton when she was on his staff for 5 years and he signed the bill. Was there any protest to him? No. Her protest was lodged, and the discrimination was directed against the men and women in uniform who defend our country, who had nothing to do with the policy.
That is a fact, and I do not think it is a matter that should be lightly dismissed. ``Oh, the recruiting didn't go down,'' they say. Well, let's just talk about that. They said she merely reinstated Harvard Law's pre-2002 policy, which forced the military to work through this veterans association, and recruiting did not suffer. But that is not true.
Harvard's pre-2002 policy--before she became dean--had obstructed military recruiting. As an internal memorandum authored by the recruiting chief of the Air Force JAG Corps in 2002 states--this is what the chief of recruiting for the Air Force JAG said:
Career Services Offices are the epicenter for all employer hiring activities at a law school. ..... Without the support of the Career Services Office, we are relegated to wandering the halls in hopes that someone will stop and talk to us. ..... [D]enying access to the Career Services Office is tantamount to chaining and locking the front door of the law school--as it has the same impact on our recruiting efforts.
The military's ``after action reports'' from pre-2002 recruiting efforts organized through the veterans association on campus show mixed results, but recruiting clearly improved after her predecessor, Dean Clark, granted the military equal access through the Career Services Office. This is what the Air Force said:
Since Harvard's policy change, the Air Force has ..... had very positive responses from a number of students. ..... [I]n the 16 months since Harvard's change in policy, we have attracted at least four Harvard students, when in the prior twelve years, we recruited a total of only nine.
That is while the discrimination was in effect.
The statistics reveal that our recruiting efforts have greatly improved since the change in policy by Harvard to comply with the Solomon Amendment. We only assessed 2 Harvard Law students in the 1990s.
This is not accurate, what we have been hearing. Then she reversed that policy and went back to the policy of discrimination. The reports show it obstructed their recruiting efforts. The chief of recruiting for the Air Force JAG Corps was repeatedly blocked from participating in Harvard's spring 2005 recruiting season, after Ms. Kagan changed the policy, saying this:
Harvard is playing games and won't give us an OCI [On-Campus Interviewing] date; their official window for employer registration has closed. Their recruiting manager told me today that she's still ``waiting to hear'' whether they'll allow us.
The chief of Air Force JAG recruiting also recounted a conversation with Harvard's dean of career services after the close of the recruiting season, when you are supposed to be recruiting--they missed the whole season--this is what he says, talking about the dean.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 1-hour time of the minority has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I don't see anyone here--I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 additional minute.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SESSIONS. The dean of career services told the Air Force JAG:
He stated that the faculty had still not decided whether to allow us to participate in on-campus interviews. ..... I asked him if I could at least post a job posting via their office and he said no.
The Army was blunt in their afteraction report:
The Army was stonewalled at Harvard. Phone calls and e-mails went unanswered and the standard response was--``We're waiting to hear from our higher authority.''
That certainly would appear to be Dean Kagan, who had reversed the policy, personally.
This is what the veterans group said when Dean Kagan reversed the policy and said: We want you to help take care of the military. We are not going to let them in our office. They are not worthy to be in our office. This is what they wrote and sent an e-mail to all the students:
Given our tiny membership, meager budget, and lack of office space, we possess neither the time nor the resources to routinely schedule campus rooms or advertise extensively for outside organizations as is the norm for most recruiting events. ..... [Our effort] falls short of duplicating the excellent assistance provided by the HLS Office of Career Services.
To claim that 2005 had increased recruiting is inaccurate. The 2005 class at Harvard would have been recruited during the time the military enjoyed full access of the career services office before she reversed the policy, not in the spring of 2005, a mere 3 months before graduation. They were counting the graduates, not people who signed up. The recruiting has not been shown to increase after this effort.
Finally, I would note: What was the purpose of all this? Why did they have this policy? It was to harm and hamper the U.S. military in their effort to recruit on campus. Apparently, it was effective in reducing their ability. They had a direct intent to punish the military for a policy the military did not establish but Congress and President Clinton established and it was wrong then and it is wrong now.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
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