In a June 9 report, NPR's Nina Totenberg provides further evidence that Solicitor General Elena Kagan is not anti-military and did not kick military recruiters off campus as dean of Harvard Law School. Media Matters has debunked the persistent right-wing myth that Kagan “defied” the law and banned military recruiters from Harvard. In reality, Kagan consistently followed the law, and Harvard students had access to military recruiters during her entire tenure as dean.

Totenberg reported:

But while her public position as dean was to revert to the anti-discrimination policy, Kagan reached out privately to the Student Veterans Association, asking the members, some of them Iraq War veterans, to once again act as a proxy for the placement office.

Recollections of her meeting with the group vary, and of the dozen or so people who were there, many could not speak on the record because of the positions they now hold.

“It was a tough room,” said one of those present. “She got more pushback than she was used to.”

“I was shocked that the request was made. The vast majority of us thought 'don't ask, don't tell' was stupid,” the person continued. “But ... getting us to carry her water on military recruitment through the back door was a bridge too far. ... I came to view her as a very smooth political person.”

Kate Buzicky, a Rhodes scholar, the treasurer of the Veterans Association and now an Army captain, says she “can't speak for everyone in the group, but I think the sentiment was that it was more of a, you know, fellowship and social organization, and they wanted to stay within that kind of role on campus.”

Another officer of the club recalls the meeting as quite a bit less contentious. “I don't remember us turning her down. We agreed to do a half-step less than she wanted.”

In the end, the group posted on the Harvard website a somewhat ambiguous announcement declaring that it had decided to accept a “limited interim role to assist fellow classmates” who wanted to meet with recruiters from the military legal offices. While the group declined to serve in a “formal liaison” capacity for the school, it still sent out e-mails to the student body announcing when a military recruiter would be on campus and letting students know how to arrange interview times. Military recruiters thus continued to meet with students on campus and in the same classrooms where other recruiters met with students. [emphases added]

The Washington Post and The New York Times have also debunked this myth.

Additionally, Totenberg reported that “the numbers of students who signed up with the military remained constant while she was dean. In fact, they even occasionally increased.” In May, Media Matters published the number of Harvard Law School graduates who entered the military, by graduating class, from 2000-2009, as evidence that military recruitment did not drop at Harvard as a result of Kagan's actions.