Advocates For Columbia ROTC: Utter Abstractions at Columbia

Monday, December 18, 2006

Utter Abstractions at Columbia

18 December 2006 The Weekly Standard Scrapbook item "Utter Abstractions at Columbia". Note: Responding to Prof. Andrew Delbanco's New Republic article the Weekly Standard notes "Delbanco never mentions in his essay that in Columbia's case (as with many other elite universities) there is a simpler explanation than social class for the situation he laments. Columbia banned the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) from its campus in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam war. And as recently as May 2005, Columbia's Senate (an advisory panel of faculty and students) voted 53-10 to keep Morningside Heights pristinely military free." See the 1 January responseby Austin Byrd.

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Advocates for ROTC

is an umbrella group for organizations that promote an atmosphere supportive of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps on college campuses.

ROTC was active at all major universities in the United States until the Vietnam War, when it was de-certified by some colleges amid anti-war sentiment. Students at these colleges can take part in ROTC programs at other colleges and receive ROTC scholarships. Although much of the anti-military sentiment of the 1960s has waned, opposition to ROTC continues, centering around the "don't ask, don't tell" law about homosexuality in the armed forces passed by Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Clinton.

ROTC is a core part of the nation's military training, producing more officers than the Service academies. At colleges without ROTC, students are growing up separated from some of the most important leaders of the future. Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Iraq, stresses that ROTC "is very important for our Army and our country" and that many ROTC graduates are "true national assets". President George W. Bush said "It should not be hard for our great schools of learning to find room to honor the service of men and women who are standing up to defend the freedoms that make the work of our universities possible". Both the country and the universities will benefit from having more such leaders.

Advocates For Columbia ROTC

Monday, December 18, 2006

Utter Abstractions at Columbia

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