Last November, a three-judge federal appellate panel sided with FAIR, suspending the enforcement of the Solomon Amendment. But in May, the Supreme Court said it would take up the case, placing the panel’s decision on hold.

Even if the high court rules against FAIR, Solomon Amendment opponents may continue to fight the Pentagon policy in court for years to come, according to the Watson visiting professor of law at Harvard, Stephen B. Burbank ’68.

A tenured professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School, Burbank is the lead plaintiff in a suit that has been placed on hold while the Supreme Court considers the FAIR case.

Burbank, along with 20 fellow law professors and seven students, argued that their university was already in compliance with the Solomon Amendment even before the Bush administration threatened to terminate over $500 million in federal funding to the university in 2003. While the military did not have access to Penn Law School’s career placement office before 2003, Penn’s university-wide career office did arrange interviews between recruiters and law students.

“It is incomprehensible how that could have violated the Solomon Amendment,” Burbank said.

—Daniel J. Hemel contributed to the reporting of this story.

—Staff writer Javier C. Hernandez can be reached at jhernand@fas.harvard.edu.