ROTC to Return to Harvard

Parents Forum
1

<p>SUrprised this wasn't posted yet -- from the Huffington Post.
S1 says the other area colleges will continue to send their cadets to MIT.</p>

<p>BOSTON — Harvard University is welcoming the Reserve Officer Training Corps program back to campus this week, 41 years after banishing it amid dissent over the Vietnam War.</p>

<p>The Cambridge, Mass., school's change in policy follows the decision by Congress in December to repeal the military ban on gays serving openly, an official familiar with the arrangement said Thursday.</p>

<p>Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus on Friday are scheduled to sign an agreement that will recognize the Naval ROTC's formal presence on campus, according to the official, who wasn't allowed to speak publicly and requested anonymity.</p>

<p>As part of the agreement, a director of Naval ROTC at Harvard will be appointed, and the university will resume funding the program. Harvard cadets will still train at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as they have for years</p>

<p>Harvard and several other prominent schools, including Stanford, Yale and Columbia, had kept the Vietnam-era ban in place following the war because of what they viewed as a discriminatory military policy forbidding gays from serving openly.</p>

<p>But after Congress cleared the way for the repeal of the so-called "don't ask, don't tell," policy in December, Harvard's president said she'd work toward ROTC's return.</p>

<p>President Barack Obama in late December signed the law to repeal the 17-year-old "don't ask don't tell" policy under which soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines were required to keep their homosexuality a secret or face dismissal. Final implementation of the repeal doesn't go into effect until 60 days after the president, defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that lifting the ban won't hurt the military's ability to fight. Part of their decision will be based on the progress of new training. The Army's top general on Feb. 17 kicked off the service's training program on the new law allowing gays to serve openly in the military, and officials said they hope to have the whole force trained by mid-August.</p>

<p>Harvard, which threw ROTC off its campus in 1969, is the first prominent school to rescind its ban since December.</p>

<p>Harvard students have still participated in ROTC in recent years, but the school didn't fund the program and the students had to train at the nearby MIT.</p>

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<p>Stanford is also considering it. Currently ROTC students have to go to UCB, SJSU, or U. of Santa Clara for training. The Stanford ad hoc committee will present its findings this spring. Should be an interesting discussion.</p>

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<p>I love how this gets positioned as “prestigious schools have forbidden ROTC” (not saying the OP said this, but this is the gist of how the story comes across). Given that MIT is just as prestigious of a school as Harvard is, the fact that one has it and one doesn’t seems like a distinction without a difference.</p>

<p>Of the top 20 or so universities, how many do have a ROTC program? Obviously MIT does, and Northwestern has an NROTC program. Does anyone know of any of the others?</p>

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<p>Rice does. [Rice</a> University | Prospective Students](<a href=“http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/ROTC_Scholarships.asp?SnID=2]Rice”>http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/ROTC_Scholarships.asp?SnID=2)</p>

5

<p>No school has ever banned any ROTC programs. If they actually banned ROTC they would lose all federal funding, including grants. Here’s the story:</p>

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<p>More info: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25Mazur.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25Mazur.html?_r=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>And what of Columbia type situations? Columbia did not recognize ROTC as a legitimate program because it discriminated against homosexuals.</p>