Statement Regarding ROTC and the Campus
September 25, 2008
Dear fellow member of the Columbia community:
Now that the glow, and the dust,
of the nationally broadcast ServiceNation Presidential Forum has settled just a
bit, I want to respond to one issue that emerged in the discussions, namely the
role of ROTC and the campus.
First, let me say that Columbia University has a long and continuing
tradition of making special efforts to open its doors to men and women with
military service. For example, there are
more than 50 veteran service men and women currently enrolled in our School of General Studies,
many of whom have recently returned from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, including 19 incoming
students this year alone. The School of General Studies was founded in 1947
largely to enable veterans of War World II to secure an Ivy League
education. While we certainly have many
veterans attending the University's many graduate schools, we are very proud of
the fact that General Studies continues actively to recruit military veterans
as part of its mission of providing a Columbia education to a wide diversity of
nontraditional undergraduates.
Second, as some of you may
already know, it is inaccurate to say that Columbia students do not have ROTC available
to them. In fact, the University has
continued to facilitate the participation of interested students who, like
their peers at almost every other New York
area college, take part in one of two regional magnet ROTC sites at Fordham and
St. John's. These Columbia
students receive the same scholarship benefits as those at schools that
formally host ROTC.
Third, it should be noted that,
as the Wall Street Journal reported last year, the Department of Defense (DOD)
has, for its own fiscal reasons, instituted a policy of aggregating small
numbers of ROTC students in urban areas into pooled programs on a limited
number of campuses. Currently, five Columbia students are enrolled in the New York regional ROTC program at
Fordham. As a result, it is not at all
clear whether a change of policy would have any impact on the current practice
of having our students travel to one of the other campus ROTC sites, as do
virtually all other students at New
York area colleges and many others across the nation.
Finally, in 2005, the University
Senate voted overwhelmingly against formally inviting ROTC onto campus. Senate members may have had a variety of
reasons for their votes, but the record and official reports make it reasonably
clear that the predominant reason was one of adhering to a core principle of
the University: that we will not have
programs on the campus that discriminate against students on the basis of such
categories as race, gender, military veteran status, or sexual
orientation. Under the current
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the Defense Department, openly gay
and lesbian students could or would be excluded from participating in ROTC
activities. That is inconsistent with
the fundamental values of the University.
A number of our peer institutions have taken a similar position.
In closing, let me just say that
this issue is a serious one deserving of our full and continuous
attention. The University, as such, does
not take positions on major public issues, except as they pertain directly to
our own policies, so that is not the question at stake here. The University
must, however, operate according to its basic norms and principles in
fulfilling our mission of research, teaching, and public service. Along with everything else, these, too, are
open for robust discussion and debate-including how we define, articulate, and apply
those principles. We should always
welcome discussion, but we should also always try to live up to the ideals we
agree on.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
President
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