Free speech zone at a university?

Sounds bizarre, me thinks. Wouldn't an entire university campus be a free speech zone? Uh, yeah. Here's the story. Last week the University of Nevada, Reno held a career fair in which the military was allowed to have a booth. The problem with that is the University has a policy which prohibits employers who discriminate from participating in the career fair. The military actively and openly discriminates against homosexuals with their "Don't ask, don't tell" policy but were allowed to attend anyway. Three student groups at UNR decided to protest, one of those groups was the Queer Student Union (QSU).

The QSU and the two other student groups decided to hold a "Kiss-in," that is, they decided to openly kiss in front of the military recruiter's table as a protest. The result, they were slapped with a lawsuit from The Young College Republicans group on campus claiming they "conjoled, harrassed and prevented" students from seeking information from the recruiters. The lawsuit seeks a restraining order and unspecified legal fees. Organizers of the event say the students weren't in a designated free speech zone. Those same organizers couldn't point out where those supposed "free speech zones" were.

The ACLU is now involved and has taken up the case on behalf the three student groups named in the lawsuit. As the ACLU says, it's not the lawsuit here that's the issue, it's the idea the University has free speech zones. The entire campus should be a free speech zone. After all, this is the United States of America, isn't it? The other issue, in my mind, is why the military is allowed to present at these career fairs.

Here's a link to an article in the Reno-Gazette Journal about the lawsuit and the groups involved.