Curbing ROTC

THE FACULTY has finally made its decision on the future of military training at Harvard, and the outcome, by and large, is encouraging. In passing over the recommendations of its own Committee on Educational Policy to adopt the resolution of the Student-Faculty Advisory Committee, the Faculty showed itself sensitive to student opinion and willing to break with tradition. The decision will strengthen the SFAC, which only a few months ago appeared beaded for oblivion. And most importantly, it strikes a blow against the privileged position of the military forces at Harvard, something which the equivocal and vague CEP recommendation would not have done.

We have advocated outright abolition of ROTC at Harvard as a way of attacking the pernicious Cold War partnership between the military and the universities which ROTC embodies. The SFAC resolution, while implicitly recognizing that ROTC is a political as well as an academic issue, does not approach this fundamental problem, and so yesterday's decision should not be the final episode of the ROTC debate here. But in the absence of any clear majority sentiment in the Harvard community in favor of complete abolition of ROTC, yesterday's decision was the most that anyone could have asked.