The University of California at Santa Cruz has many virtues, but ideological diversity is not one of them.

The gorgeous ocean-view campus is one of the nation's prettiest, the academic program is stimulating, the students and faculty are smart and the Ultimate Frisbee playing fields are absolutely stunning.

Pause for a Suits & Sentences flashback.

But on this seemingly 'shroom-rich campus that has adopted the name Banana Slugs for its athletic teams, do not expect to find anything quite so traditional as an ROTC program or even a military recruiter. And in a ruling Friday, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has rejected a bid by the Young America's Foundation to penalize U.C. Santa Cruz for its supposed inhospitality to the military.

YAF, which bills itself as "committed to ensuring that young Americans understand and are inspired by...the importance of a strong national defense." Incredibly -- for anyone who knows the U.C. Santa Cruz reputation -- the conservative organization had several members on the Santa Cruz campus. They claimed that on five occasions between 2005 and 2007, student and faculty protests blocked or disrupted military recruiters on campus.

YAF sued, trying to force the federal government to invoke the Solomon Amendment and withdraw tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. No dice. On Friday, the appellate panel upheld a trial judge in concluding that the conservative youth could not show that the action they sought -- the withdrawal or threatened withdrawal of the federal funds -- would actually solve the problem they identified of impeded military access.