Dems and Republicans Unite on ROTC Bill

Harvard’s Democrats and Republicans united for one night at Sunday’s Undergraduate Council meeting to express support for Harvard cadets and midshipmen in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC).

Harvard Republican Club (HRC) President Caleb L. Weatherl ’10 and Harvard College Democrats President Jarret A. Zafran ’09 jointly presented a bill called “Supporting ROTC,” an effort to show support for students at the College involved in the ROTC program.

The bill, as passed by the UC, aims to allow all ROTC courses taken by Harvard students at MIT to appear on their Harvard transcripts. Current policy states that ROTC courses “may be taken only on a non-credit basis.”

The bill also recommends that the University say that it “is proud of [students’] service to the nation” in its description of ROTC.

Colin J. Motley ’10, an HRC vice president, said that the idea for the bill came from informal conversations with ROTC members, and the list of proposed policy changes was developed in cooperation with leadership of the Republican and Democratic clubs and the Harvard ROTC Association.

Both the Republicans and the Democrats stressed that the bill was not explicitly partisan in nature.

“We all have an interest in recognizing these brave men and women, Harvard Republican Club as well as the Democrats, and we’re happy to work with the Democrats on what should be an entirely noncontroversial goal,” Weatherl said in an interview.

While the bill was advertised as being politically neutral, Eliot House resident Andrew D. Fine ’09, who is a former Crimson editorial editor, pleaded the UC not to pass the bill because of its third clause, which “recommends to the President of the University that the commissioning of Harvard ROTC cadets and midshipmen continue to be permitted to take place on Harvard’s campus.”

The ROTC was expelled from the Harvard campus in 1969 and the University continues to oppose its presence on campus because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prevents gay and lesbian individuals from serving openly.

Harvard cadets have participate in the program at MIT since the Harvard faculty approved the arrangement in 1976.

Fine said that Harvard should pressure the military to drop the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy, which he termed discriminatory.

A similar sentiment was expressed in the separate “DADT Act” which the UC passed in addition to the ROTC bill.

The Act, sponsored by Zafran, aims “to ensure that the exclusionary implications of DADT never pervade Harvard’s campus.” Zafran said that the act “affirms the student body’s opinion that nondiscrimination policy is the right policy.”

University President Drew G. Faust and then-Interim University President Derek C. Bok drew fire last June for skipping the ROTC’s annual commissioning ceremony, which is held during Commencement week.

Faust and Bok’s absences stood in contrast to the practice of Lawrence H. Summers, who spoke at the ceremony each year of his presidency and called for an increased presence of the military on campus, even as he harshly criticized “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Faust has said that she will be speaking at the commissioning ceremony this June.