FAIR’s suit is just one of a series of pending legal challenges to the Solomon Amendment.

Law professors and students from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have already filed suits.

In November, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Lifland, a 1957 HLS graduate, denied FAIR’s motion for a temporary order immediately suspending enforcement of the statute.

But according to Rosenkranz, “the government sheds a lot of the arguments that were made at the district court level.”

Lifland’s opinion supported the Pentagon’s claim that schools receiving federal funds must cooperate with military recruiters.

But according to Rosenkranz, Justice Department lawyers argued Tuesday “that Congress can constitutionally require any school to provide services to military recruiters”—even if the school does not accept government money.

“That’s quite a bold pronouncement,” Rosenkranz said, adding that the government’s articulation of a more extreme viewpoint Tuesday bolsters FAIR’s chances for success.

But the Third Circuit Court is not likely to hear oral arguments in the case until May, according to Rosenkranz.

“Harvard’s spring recruiting will most likely be under the current Solomon Amendment regime,” he said.

—Staff Writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.