An interesting case has been going on in US courts between the defense department and universities. The government added a condition to an education bill a while ago stating that if a school didn’t allow military recruiters access to their students they would have their federal funding withdrawn. Here’s the decision on the case:

SCOTUS Gets It Right on Military Recruiting

This kind of behaviour by the US federal government has interested me for a while. I’ve always thought the US was supposed to be setup so the states have more power than the federal government. That has obviously been reversing over the last several decades but what suprised me is how it’s happening. In many cases the federal government will institute policies like “States must either raise the drinking age to 21 or we will withdraw the federal portion of highway funding.” To me this has always seemed backhanded and must be at least border-line unconstitutional.

If the US decides it’s no longer important for states to have their own powers, that’s fine, but don’t do it in sketchy ways to get around existing laws. Get congress to change the laws. That hasn’t happened yet because no one would ever agree to that.