Columbia To Consider Bringing ROTC Back to Campus

For the first time since the Vietnam War, Columbia University's board of trustees will consider whether to allow the resumption of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps program on campus.

The chairman of the board of trustees, David Stern, told The New York Sun he is pushing to the forefront of the board's agenda the issue of the university's policy toward ROTC.

Mr. Stern, who is stepping down as chairman next month, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the board ought to review the policy in case the Department of Defense requests that the university host a unit.

The board's review comes at a time when there appears to be widespread support of the ROTC program among students. In April 2003, one student poll showed that 65% of students favored the return of ROTC.

The campaign to restore ROTC, however, suffered a major setback earlier this month when a campus policy-making body voted against a resolution in support of the military scholarship program.

Complicating matters for the trustees is the university's president, Lee Bollinger, who has already declared himself an opponent of ROTC and was among those who voted against the resolution before the university senate.

Mr. Stern suggested that a major concern for the trustees in its evaluation of the university's policy toward ROTC is the federal government's policy prohibiting openly gay men and women from serving in the military.

His sentiments echoed those expressed by Mr. Bollinger, who stated in a letter published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that his position "reflected a consensus of the Columbia University community ... that the university should stand by its nondiscrimination policy."

Mr. Stern said the trustees would have the final say on the issue. "Ultimately, the decision on ROTC's return is one for the trustees," he said.

Columbia's trustees have not taken up the issue of ROTC since the board in 1969 voted to phase out the university's Navy ROTC program amid antiwar protests on campus. Columbia was one of six Ivy League schools to dismantle its ROTC programs during the war.

In the intervening years, the Department of Defense has not requested that the university establish a detachment at Morningside Heights, and the board of trustees has avoided enunciating any official policy. A handful of Columbia students "cross enroll" at ROTC programs at Fordham University and Manhattan College.

"In the absence of a request, you sort of have a policy of 'don't request, don't answer,'" Mr. Stern said. "But I think it's time for the trustees to become educated on the subject in case the request comes."

Weighing on the board is a federal statute known as the Solomon Amendment, which denies federal funding to universities that prevent or prohibit ROTC programs on their campuses.

If the board approves a policy that prohibits the university from hosting an ROTC program, it runs the risk of running afoul of the law. The federal government has not indicated that it intends to pressure Columbia to establish an ROTC unit. A chief concern for defense officials is whether an ROTC detachment at Columbia would enroll enough students to warrant the resources.

Mr. Stern's insistence that the board take up the issue of ROTC comes as Mr. Bollinger has drawn criticism for his opposition to hosting a program.

A May 11 editorial in the Wall Street Journal blamed the university's reluctance to invite ROTC back on campus on Mr. Bollinger's "dismal leadership" and questioned the university's patriotism in a time of war. Writing in the same newspaper, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, Eliot Cohen, called the university senate's vote "contemptible" and suggested that it could be used to trigger an application of the Solomon Amendment.

Responding to the criticism, Mr. Bollinger wrote in his letter to the Wall Street Journal that "the men and women who serve our country deserve our utmost respect and support. I also believe they and all Americans deserve a military that does not discriminate invidiously against any individuals who volunteer to serve and sacrifice for our country."

Many of the supporters of ROTC at Columbia say they are opposed to the federal government's "Don't ask, Don't tell, Don't pursue" policy toward gays in the military, but argue that Columbia's response does not have to be erecting a barrier between it and the military.

Frederic Cook, a member of the Defense Business Board, which advises the Pentagon, said concern for gays in the military is often "just an excuse. If it wasn't that, it would be something else."