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ROTC Coverage Added Recently

  • 11 June 2008 Boston Globe letter "Harvard and the ROTC" by Wayne L. Johnson.  Note:  Responding to a 5 June Boston Globe article "Faust criticizes military's ban on gays", a retired Navy commander with the Judge Advocate General's Corps points out that Faust did not explicitly mention gays and that the ban on open homosexuality in the military is federal law, not military policy.
  • 8 June 2008 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award 2008.  Note:  Michael J. Arth 08 took flights in two vintage east-block aircraft as winner of the 2008 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award.
  • 7 June 2008 Weekly Standard column "The Few, the Proud: Harvard ROTC's five new officers" by Dean Barnett '89.  Note:  Barnett considers President Faust's statement about ROTC graduates "I wish that there were more of you", juxtaposed with an allusion to advancing gay rights, and notes that "taking her words at face value, one wonders whether she truly anticipates that the removal of the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy would trigger greater participation. Given the percentage of heterosexual students who join ROTC, one would mathematically project the number of homosexual participants to be zero unless Harvard's gay population has a greater eagerness for ROTC participation than the straight population."
  • 5 June 2008 New York Sun column "Harvard President Salutes Newly Commissioned Military Officers: 'I wish that there were more of you' Faust Tells Five" by Set Gitell.  Note:  Gitell writes: "For a little less than a hour yesterday Harvard dedicated itself to honoring those graduates who have opted to serve America as members of the military... A patriotic address from the university's president, Drew Gilpin Faust, punctuated the ceremony...  Some feared before the speech that she might engage in a full-throated denunciation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her comments came in a somewhat vague, nuanced, and respectful fashion that left Harvard's most passionate advocates of military service happy."
  • 5 June 2008 Boston Globe article "Faust criticizes military's ban on gays".  Note:  The Globe observed that "Faust unmistakably conveyed yesterday that her opposition in no way diminished her admiration for military service".  See letter on 11 June.
  • 5 June 2008 Harvard Crimson article "In ROTC Address, Faust Quietly Criticizes 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'".  Note:  The Crimson focuses on President Faust's line "I wish that there were more of you" as being about inclusion of gay students in ROTC.  However, it also echoed words of Wall Street Journal editor Naomi Schaefer Riley who asked about Faust "Does she really want a lot of more Harvard students taking up arms? I would be surprised if she sort of acknowledged that."
  • 4 June 2008 Harvard University Gazette article "Five graduate to service: Faust expresses ‘profound appreciation’ for ROTC grads". 
  • 4 June 2008 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008 by LT General Tad Oelstrom, USAF, (Ret), Director of the National Security Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
  • 4 June 2008 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008 by LTC Leo McGonagle, Professor of Military Leadership at MIT and leader of the Army ROTC program for Harvard students.
  • 4 June 2008 "Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony" by Harvard President Drew Faust.  Note: President Faust told the ROTC graduates "I celebrate you on this important day... I wish that there were more of you".  She spoke of the history of universities and the military in advancing equality and participation and said, without giving specifics, "These are principles we must continue to honor and strive to extend".  Audio here.
  • 4 June 2008 "Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008".
  • 3 June 2008 Harvard Crimson Op-ed "Hate the Policy, Not the Program" by Derek Flanzraich ’10.  Note: Flanzraich writes: "The Faculty of Arts and Sciences should pass a resolution reversing their position and welcome ROTC back to Harvard’s campus. At the same time, they must also push every other Ivy League University to join them in issuing a statement publicly condemning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”".  He also states that military recruiting on camps is banned. Although this was true in recent years, Harvard reversed its ban shortly after the 6 March 2006 Supreme Court Decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. (No. 04-1152), which upheld the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment tying federal funding to permitting military recruiting and ROTC.

Older material added recently:

  • 18 October 2007 Morning Prayer remarks by Prof. Harry Lewis at Harvard.  Note:  The former dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences quotes from Romans 14:13 "that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way" and opines on Harvard's gay-rights concerns about ROTC "I don’t think Harvard’s stance on ROTC is morally tenable. We should not attempt to remove the barriers facing some of our students by placing stumbling blocks in the path of others...  The issue is not bringing an ROTC unit to Harvard. Units are merging today, not splitting. We should normalize Harvard’s relations with MIT ROTC. Harvard ought to pay its bills to MIT directly. It ought to bus our ROTC students as it buses our volleyball teams." 
Previous material on the sites can be reached using the links on the sidebar.  Please contact us if you have more links to add.

Last updated: 01 July 2008