A Week the Council Will Never Forget

The Undergraduate Council thrust itself into the national spotlight last Sunday when it approved a resolution calling for the return of an on-campus Reserve officers Training Corps program. The council got plenty of attention but also learned that when you're under bright lights, you have to take the heat.

What council members treated earlier this semester as a seemingly uncontroversial student services proposal exploded this week into what may be the largest crisis ever for the seven-year-old student government.

The campus debate also drew the attention of the national media, which made particular note of the 20th anniversary of the student strike of 1969.

Amid calls from some anti-ROTC activists for votes to recall council members who supported the resolution and semi-serious suggestions of another siege of University Hall, the council is gearing up to reconsider its ROTC resolution. The body will vote tomorrow whether to modify it, repeal it or keep it intact.

The last time students became actively involved in the ROTC issue was in 1969 when they did storm University Hall, demanding in part the severing of all ties between ROTC and Harvard.

The Faculty had already voted to withdraw academic credit for ROTC courses, and after the siege of University Hall it passed a resolution forbidding ROTC "special privileges or facilities granted either by contract or informal arrangement." Shortly thereafter, all three divisions of ROTC separately withdrew from the Harvard campus.

The roughly 90 Harvard students currently enrolled in ROTC must travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to receive military training.

In 1969, students were fighting ROTC on the issues of the Vietnam War and the propriety of an officially sanctioned military presence at a liberal arts university.

But while some students still said they were concerned with the issue of military influence, this week's ROTC debate was for the most part framed in radically different terms.

A vocal group of activists--some of whom organized the Anti-ROTC Action Committee (ARAC)--is pushing opposition to the council resolution on the grounds of institutional discrimination against gays and lesbians.

They say that endorsing ROTC violates both the council constitution and Harvard policy, which each contain clauses prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The armed force do not allow gays and lesbians to serve in their ranks.

The issues of discrimination and constitutionality were brought out repeatedly at last Sunday's meeting, but, looking back, many council members say that they were voting out of ignorance.

"I was totally unaware of the exact policy," said Eliot House representative S. Layla Voll '90 in an interview Tuesday.

And Chair Kenneth E. Lee '89, who this week withdrew his support for the restoration of ROTC, said that the relevance of the council's constitution was not made clear during the meeting.

But the council's lively and admittedly uninformed debate during last Sunday's meeting paled in comparison to the argument which raged across campus later in the week--spurred on by pleas for support from students on both sides of the controversy.

Council members said that they were not aware of all the issues surrounding ROTC during the debate, but they can claim no such ignorance after a week of intensive demonstrations and lobbying activities.

ARAC's efforts have been most visible. They began the week with a candlelight vigil in front of the Kennedy School of Government planned to coincide with a speech by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson. But inside, when asked about the ROTC controversy by students, Jackson said ROTC should remain an option for undergraduates.

On Tuesday, 300 students gathered in front of University Hall to hear students, faculty members, alumni and even a dean speak against ROTC's return to Harvard.

At that rally, Kelly M. Dermody '89-'90, co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Students Association, demanded not only that the council repeal its resolution, but that it issue an apology to the gay and lesbian community for its action.

Rally participants sought to invoke the spirit of 1969 as Michael W. Macy '70, a participant in the University Hall takeover, urged students to wage their fight on the grounds of the fundamental incompatibility of the military with the University's academic mission.

But at the same time as ARAC members pointed to well-attended events and small but symbolic victories like Lee's about-face, ROTC advocates mobilized to wage a campaign of their own.

After the opening moments of the debate Sunday, ROTC supporters seemed to understand that to make their cause politically viable, they would have to make arguments other than an on-campus ROTC program's being convenient for students.

At the council meeting, ROTC students Joel D. Hornstein '92 and Scott Frewing '90--the resolution's co-sponsors--both argued that many students could not afford to come to Harvard without ROTC scholarships.

As the debate evolved, ROTC supporters began playing ARAC's own game and introduced their own issue of constitutionality: they argued that by disallowing ROTC's return, the council would be discriminating on the basis of economic disadvantage, a practice also forbidden by its constitution.

But later in the week, financial aid officers said that only Army ROTC, which accomodates 20 of the 90 Harvard students participating in the program, grants less money to students without on campus units.

The war of activism continued to rage as ARAC members Thursday staged a "lobby-in," dropping off approximately 30 letters to the council's offices in Canaday Hall.

And pro-ROTC students continued to poster the campus with signs like the one reading: "If you support more progressive thinking in the military, Harvard officers are part of the solution. Support ROTC on campus." Another read simply, "Tolerance for Everyone."

Pro-ROTC students also argued that training officers at Harvard will help to liberalize the military. By introducing Harvard students into the military, they might be able to reform the armed services from within, ROTC backers argued.

But many students and professors have said the entire debate over ROTC is irrelevant. The full Faculty must vote on any change in the University's current ROTC policies.

While saying that the Faculty would probably discuss bringing ROTC back, professors and administrators have said that would not expect the Faculty to agree to the restoration of an on-campus ROTC program.

"Clearly there is very little likelihood that the faculty would vote to recommend reinstatement of ROTC," said Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 in an interview Monday.

But even if the Faculty were to ask for ROTC's return without academic credit, as the council has suggested, the military would probably not return without special arrangements.

Because it is the military's normal policy to start ROTC programs only on campuses where academic credit is given and where military instructors are granted faculty tenure, even Faculty approval of the council's resolution would likely do little to bring ROTC back.

Whether ROTC's return is realistic or not, the council will debate the issue again tomorrow night when it will offer its members a menu of resolutions and changes to suit any political taste: from the sweeping to the moderately conciliatory.

The Services Committee has forwarded four resolutions for debate Sunday. One would repeal the original resolution, another would make ROTC's return contingent upon the end to its discriminatory policies, a third would deny faculty positions to any military instructors, and the last would mandate that any new campus organizations comply with Harvard's anti-discriminatory policies.

A fifth resolution, introduced by Hornstein and Dana M. Bush '90, would call for an end to anti-gay rules in the military, but would not make ROTC's return contingent upon those changes.

After last Sunday's often unruly session, council leaders are taking extra precautions to insure that speakers' rights are protected at tomorrow night's meeting. And the council has announced that its session will be moved from its regular location in Sever Hall to a larger room in Emerson, in anticipation of what may prove to be the largest crowd and the most heated debate in council history.