ROTC Battle Rages On

Gather up the ammunition: It looks as though Harvard, reacting to the new "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy on gays in the military announced this July, is ready to start the battle over on-campus ROTC again this semester.

The faces of the participants have changed since the arguments over gay participation in ROTC at Harvard started in the late 1980s, but the essential elements of the conflict have not: balancing a stance against antigay discrimination with the rights and needs of student cadets.

According to MIT's ROTC office, approximately 36 Harvard students will participate in Navy ROTC this year, 13 in Air Force ROTC and between 20 and 30 in Army ROTC. Currently, Harvard pays approximately $130,000 per year to MIT for these students' participation.

While these cadets will probably not be affected by any policy change Harvard makes, future cadets now wait in policy limbo. Last spring, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences endorsed the recommendations of the 1992 ROTC Committee report, which would cut Harvard funding to MIT by 1995 if the military's ban on gays was not lifted.

But the final decision always rested with President Neil L. Rudenstine and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, and both are backing off, calling for more informal discussion of the issue before any action.

"My hope is that the Verba committee will simply look at the landscape and give us advice," says Knowles. "I hope that committee will meet simply to see how their recommendations sit in the post-July landscape." A re-examination of the issue in the Faculty Council or the full Faculty is also possible, he says.

"I myself didn't estimate the [possibility] of having formal sessions and certainly not another committee," says Rudenstine. He does want to see general discussion of the issue in the Faculty and the general community, he says.