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Forth between senator sessions and elena kagan, bret baier joins us from washington, at one point senator sessions said she had given the military the run around at harvard and suggested she didn't revere the military, to which she was quite opposed and said that was not the case at all. >> reporter: that's right and senator leahy offered her the ability to kind of wrap up her comments, about the military, and her support of the military, at the end, but senator sessions was getting to the point about military recruiters on harvard, whether they could go through the career services office, or ...

School could also comply with its anti-discrimination policy, a policy that was meant to protect all of the students on our campus, including the gay and lesbian students who might very much want to serve in the military, who might very much want to do that most honorable kind of service that a person can do for her country. >> i would think that that's a legitimate concern, and people can disagree about that, and i respect your view on that. what i'm having difficult with is why you would take the steps of treating the military in a second class way, to speak to rallies, to send out e-mails, ...

Because we have always tried to be in compliance with the solomon amendment. thought that we were. when dod had long held that we were, when dod came back to us and said no, notwithstanding the third circuit decision, we maintain our insistence that you're out of compliance with the solomon amendment, we said okay. >> well, in fact, you were punishing the military. the protest that you had, that you spoke to on campus, was at the very time in the next meeting, or one or two buildings nearby, the military were meeting there, some of the military veterans, when they met with you the first time e...

Compliance with the solomon amendment and for many, many years dod disagreed with us. after the third circuit, i thought it was appropriate to go back to our role of policy which previously dod thought had complied with the solomon amendment. when dod said, no, the third circuit hassant changed matter because we're going to take this to the supreme court and we want law schools to ignore what the third circuit said, we had some discussions and we went back to doing it exactly the way dod wanted to. >> let's get more basic about it. the military, you stopped c complying and that season was lost...

You said that at that meeting much and in addition to that a lawsuit was filed in a distant circuit, the third circuit and you participated in the filing of a brief attacking the don't ask, don't tell policy is that correct? >> senator sessions that is not quite correct. the lawsuit itself brought a constitutional challenge to the don't ask -- the solomon amendment. we did not participate in that challenge. what the brief that i filed did do was to argue, try to argue that harvard's accommodation, which allowed -- which, you know, welcomes the military on campus, but through our veterans organ...