“President Summers wanted the Law School to cave,” she said. “We could not find anywhere the will to resist Summers.”

Noting that Summers was “conveniently left off the stage” of the rally, Halley said she wished the school had “forced Summers to involve himself, either by suing or by forcing the Law School to comply.”

“We were too weak to force Summers to force us,” she said, calling the Law School dean’s and administration’s presence at the rally a “compensatory” action aimed to celebrate gay identity without changing policy.

Law School Dean Robert C. Clark said afterward that Halley’s account was “speculation,” and that the University and Law School administration had agreed that it would be unlikely that a fight would “make a positive improvement in policy.”

Professor of Law John C. Coates, a member of the Law School Placement Committee, which discussed the Harvard response with the administration this summer, said following the rally that he also saw the decision as a mandate from the central administration.

“It was clear from the beginning of the Placement Committee’s involvement that administration representatives described his position as being unwilling to take any risk,” he said.

Coates said that while the University had lobbied informally within the Pentagon to maintain its original policy of allowing recruiting through a Law School student group, the central administration would not permit Harvard to make a formal appeal that might have sacrificed the funding.

Legal Challenge

A 1998 Pentagon review found that allowing the campus student group—the Harvard Law School Veterans Association—to schedule interviews fulfilled the Solomon Amendment access requirements. Because of this prior decision, law professors have said that a challenge to the new, stricter interpretation of the law might be successful.

In an interview yesterday, Summers said that discussions with the University General Counsel’s office and with an outside lawyer retained by the Law School indicated that challenges would be futile.

“I had been advised that our prospects, that the interpretation on which we relied was highly uncertain,” Summers said, adding that a successful legal challenge would invite a Congressional clarification of the policy.

Dershowitz said during his speech that fears of Congressional action should not stop Harvard from attempting a fight.

Both Coates and Halley said they would consider joining colleagues in an independent legal action but would have to consider the case’s chances for success. Coates said it might be difficult for the professors, rather than the University or students directly impacted by “don’t ask, don’t tell,” to prove they had legal standing to bring suit.

In brief remarks to lead off the rally, Clark called the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy “dysfunctional, counterproductive, and profoundly unjust and unfair.”