Law schools seeking the right to boycott military recruiters as a form of protest against the government’s policy on gays in the Armed Forces are relying on an argument that could be used to support the right of universities to defy federal anti-discrimination mandates, legal scholars say.

The U.S Supreme Court today will hear arguments in a case whose outcome will likely determine whether the government is allowed to withhold federal money from universities that restrict military recruiting on their campuses.

The Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, an association of three dozen law schools and law faculties that has brought suit against the American government, is challenging a federal statute known as the Solomon Amendment that essentially bars universities from discriminating against military recruiters.

The law schools argue that they ought to be able to protest the nation’s policy on gays in the military by restricting military recruitment. By demanding autonomy from Congress’s policy on gays in the military, law schools, in effect, are making the case for expanding their autonomy from other federal mandates, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, according to legal scholars.

“If you have the right to disobey Congress’s rules about discriminating against the military, universities should be free to disobey other strings Congress attaches to federal money, including the discrimination rules of Title VI and Title IX,” a professor at George Mason University’s School of Law in Arlington, Va., who opposes the effort by FAIR, David Bernstein said.

A Columbia University law professor, Michael Dorf, who said he strongly opposes the government’s policy on gays in the military but said the law schools ought to be concerned about falling into a trap. Their argument is “dangerous,” he said, “because it would permit universities to resist anti-discrimination norms as well.”

Conceivably, he said, a university that supports policies that discriminate against a minority group could use the same reasoning that FAIR is using to ban government recruiters that oppose such discrimination.

The case before the court revolves around the Solomon Amendment, a federal statute first passed by Congress in 1995 that denies federal funding to universities that do not give the military the same access to students that the schools grant other recruiters. The statute also denies funding to universities that prevent or prohibit ROTC programs on their campuses.

Congress passed the measure after a number of law schools barred military recruiters to protest the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” prohibition of openly gay members of the military. No law school has yet given up federal funding in order to ban military recruiters.

Mr. Bernstein said the Solomon Amendment is “structured exactly like Title IX and Title VI.” Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance, and Title IX, passed in 1972, provides protections against gender discrimination.

The high court is reviewing a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that found that the Solomon Amendment violated the First Amendment rights of schools to protest the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

In its brief to the court, FAIR argues that the Solomon Amendment infringes upon First Amendment rights by forcing universities to carry a message against their will, by hampering the ability of schools to convey their opposition to discrimination, and by violating the right of universities to “choose for themselves which causes to assist or resist.”

The U.S government in its brief says the Solomon Amendment protects the ability of the military to recruit the most talented men and women while leaving universities “entirely free to criticize the military on whatever grounds they wish.” The presence of the military on campuses does not suggest the universities support the government’s policies on gays in the military, the government brief argues. “Students and the public readily understand that when recruiters visit campus they speak for their employers, not for the educational institution,” it says.

Mr. Dorf has argued that the case ought to be challenged on statutory rather than constitutional grounds. By his reading of the Solomon Amendment, universities are simply required to treat all recruiters equally. Universities that restrict military recruiters would not be violating the statute because they would put limitations on any recruiter that refused to adhere to their nondiscrimination policies.

Ken Choe, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he thought it was highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would make it easier for institutions receiving federal funding to violate federal anti-discrimination statutes.

“The conventional wisdom is that the court is not going to do anything that would jeopardize the government’s ability to enforce anti-discrimination laws,” he said.