Harvard to Welcome ROTC if DADT Ends
0Harvard University is prepared to roll back its long standing policy of not allowing the ROTC access to the campus through official administrative channels--if and when the anti-gay gay preventing openly gay patriots from serving their country is repealed, the Associated Press reported on Nov. 18.
University President Drew Gilpin Faust was introducing Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen when she reiterated Harvard's policy and pointed out that once "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is repealed, the military will no longer come into conflict with the university's non-discrimination policy. Mullen was at Harvard to deliver a speech.
Colleges and universities across the country have the same problem. Their non-discrimination policies collide with the 1993 law that makes the military, in essence, an employer that practices anti-gay discrimination. Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are in favor of repealing the law, and have set in motion a year-long review process on how best to set the anti-gay law aside. As part of that process, the Pentagon recently surveyed half a million servicemembers and their families on their views about service with openly GLBT comrades in arms. That report, according to sources, shows that the majority of the military--like the majority of the general public--has no problem with openly gay troops.
Faust said that Harvard would welcome the military on campus once GLBT Americans share "the privilege and honor of military service," just as straights do.
The issue of Harvard's refusal to welcome the ROTC was repeatedly referenced by Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions during Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sessions, asked about Kagan on CNN, sought to depict her as a Harvard administrator who implemented a policy to exclude military recruiters even as American servicemembers were dying by the thousand to "protect Harvard's right to exist."
"What happened was, a number of law schools, Harvard being, I think, a leader, when she was there, would not allow the military recruiters to come on to the law school to recruit JAG officers for the military because she didn't agree with the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy," said Sessions. "We had a thousand soldiers killed defending free speech and the right of Harvard to exist... during that period of time, so I think that that is something that would be asked [of Kagan during confirmation hearings]."
Sessions added that Kagan "felt that ['Don't Ask, Don't Tell'] was discriminatory, but it was the established policy of the United States... and she could work to change that, but I don't think it was acceptable... for her to say, 'You can't even come on our campus because I disagree with your policy.' "
Supporters of Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court, which followed the announcement that John Paul Stevens would be stepping down, pointed out that Kagan remained within the law at every point, allowing military recruiters on campus when a federal law came into effect that would have denied funds from the U.S. Government to colleges and universities, and withdrawing that privilege from military recruiters when a federal court struck the law down. When the U.S. Supreme Court--the same bench to which Kagan has now been nominated--reinstated the law, Kagan allowed recruiters on the Harvard campus once more.
A May 11 Associated Press story that reported on Kagan's "precise" adherence to the law also carried a quote from Clinton-era Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, who said, "Elena Kagan does not have a single antimilitary bone in her body."
Moreover, the article noted, Kagan had not instituted the ban; she was simply following existing polices that had been put in place before her tenure, as her predecessor, Robert Clark, had also done. The ban came into effect in 1979, when Harvard put anti-discrimination policies into place that refused access to employers that did not protect GLBT workers.
Robert Clark himself wrote on the controversy in a May 11 Wall Street Journal article, explaining that Harvard's official policy had been circumvented for years by student groups who took the initiative to invite military recruiters to the campus themselves, which was allowed under the university's policies. "In 2002, however, the Air Force took a hard line with Harvard," Clark wrote, "and argued that this pattern did not provide strictly equal access for military recruiters and thus violated the 1996 Solomon Amendment, which denies certain federal funds to an education institution that 'prohibits or in effect prevent' military recruiting." Added Clark, "It credibly threatened to bring an end to federal funding of all research at the university," which would not have had much of an impact on the law school, but which would have been devastating to the medical school and to other elements of the university.
Harvard agreed to allow the military to recruit on the campus despite its anti-gay policy. Wrote Clark, "At the same time, I, along with many faculty and students, publicly stated our opposition to the military's policy, which we considered both unwise and unjust, even as we explicitly affirmed our profound gratitude to the military." When Kagan took over as dean of the law school, she issued a "memorandum" to explain why one anti-gay employer--the U.S. military--was being given access that other anti-gay employers were denied under the university's anti-discrimination policies.
However, Kagan also extended support and appreciation to individual military officers who were students at the university.
In September, well after Kagan's nomination cleared Congress, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts criticized Harvard for not welcoming the ROTC, saying that Harvard "should embrace young people who want to serve their country," local newspaper the Boston Herald reported on Sept. 24.
That same sentiment has been expressed by college administrators, military leaders, and three-quarters of the American population--with reference to the military. However, many doubt that despite public support for the repeal of DADT the current lame duck session of the Senate will pass legislation to allow gay troops to serve under the condition that they remain closeted.