Ivy League vs. armed forces
Should elite universities welcome the military back?
Some of our top academic institutions have refused to allow military recruiters on campus or sponsor R.O.T.C. programs since the 1960s, during the height of the anti-war movement. Harvard and Yale students interested in R.O.T.C. must trek to other campuses to take part, and enrollment is almost nonexistent.
Born out of anti-war sentiment, these policies are now defended on the basis of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy toward homosexuals. A letter of protest against on-campus recruiting from the faculty of Columbia University Law School makes the case:
This recruitment directly violates the Law School’s longstanding non-discrimination policy, which forbids employers from recruiting on our campus if they discriminate based on, inter alia, sexual orientation. Under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which bars openly lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals from military service, military employers discriminate explicitly based on sexual orientation.
Supporters of campus recruitment have accused schools like Columbia of hypocrisy. These institutions accept scholarship money from the military for soldiers-turned-students, and often house national security programs that serve mostly mid-career military officers. Why tolerate the military sometimes but not all of the time?
Harvard President Drew Faust responded to these charges this way in an interview with The New York Times‘ Michael Winerip:
“Trying to maintain two values – nondiscrimination and national service – is very complicated. It has us all tied in knots. There are contradictions. We make these sometimes awkward arguments that are less than pure consistency. Why do we do x and not y? Why do we have the helicopters? Why do I appear at the commissioning? There are enormous complexities and contradictions. We wind up creating compromises that are not philosophically consistent.”
“The way to resolve these inconsistencies,” she said, “is to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.”
The U.S. Supreme Court fanned the flames in 2006 by upholding the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, which states that universities can lose their eligibility for federal grants if even one of their schools refuses to allow military recruitment. Schools like Columbia Law have begrudgingly complied with recruiters as a result.
What is all this really about? Schools allow and sponsor all sorts of discriminatory groups on campus, including religious associations, fraternities, and sororities. The military surely wouldn’t be the most controversial group these schools have allowed to speak on campus.
But why can’t a private university invite or reject whomever it chooses? Perhaps the reply here is they are entitled to do just that – but don’t come asking for state funds if you won’t accept state rules (thus the Solomon Amendment). So the schools won’t budge unless the state alters its rules (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell), and the state won’t budge unless the schools let them in.
If and when President Obama repeals “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, we’ll know at last whether it’s really discrimination that has Ivy Leaguers hung up. It may be that in the face of unpopular wars and among conventionally leftist student bodies, military recruiters will continue to get scarce returns on their investment.
-Colin
Photo by The U.S. Army used under a Creative Commons attribution license.
Related posts:
- Is it ever ok to discriminate?
- My professor voted for McCain
- Education back on the table
- Fighting on a virtual battlefield
- More on war games
ShareComments
Leave a Reply
