Columbia ROTC Coverage 2005-2009

2005:

• 21 January 2005 Yale Daily News article "Return of ROTC is debated: Defense Department shows renewed interest in bringing program back to Ivy campuses".  Note: The article also discusses efforts to restore ROTC at Harvard and Columbia.
• 21 January 2005 Associated Press article "Decades after Vietnam, ROTC making return effort to Ivy League".  Note:  The article suggests that the "Captain and a Sergeant" the military plans to post on the Harvard campus will be to run "a recruiting office".
• 21 January 2005 Yale Herald article "The Next Battle: ROTC at Yale: After a complex history, college military org. may reoccupy hostile territory".
• 28 January 2005 Columbia University Senate minutes "Update from the Senate Task Force on ROTC".
• 31 January 2005 Columbia Spectator article "No Change for CU in Military Recruiting".  Note: The ROTC and Military Recruiter Equal Access to Campus Act of 2004 was signed in October.
• 31 January 2005 Columbia spectator article "University Senate Debates Student Involvement in Future Task Forces".  Note:  The University Senate also heard an interim report from the its ROTC task force.  A "town hall meeting is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 15 for the task force to listen to the opinions of the Columbia community".
• 15 February 2005 Brown Daily Herald article "Interest in ROTC minimal at Brown despite debate at other Ivies".  Note:  Currently there are only two cadets.  Another student said "People at Brown are the type of people who should be filling the military in large numbers... I think the military is an institution we should be dedicated to repair and bring into the 21st century."
• 15 February 2005 transcript "Proceedings of the University Senate: Should Columbia restore ROTC? A Town Hall meeting moderated by the Senate Task Force on ROTC".
• 16 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Debaters Battle Military Recruit Policies at CU".  Note:  The article describes the Columbia University Senates' Town Hall meeting about the proposal to return ROTC to Columbia.  ROTC proponents discussed how ROTC at Columbia would be good for Columbia and good for the country and ROTC opponents cited the Federal Law about homosexuality in the military.
• 16 February 2005 Columbia Spectator column "ROTC, You Are (Still) Not Wanted Here" by Nick Rosenthal.  Note:  The writer calls for preventing discussion of the Columbia ROTC issue in the New York Times and says that the attitude of ROTC proponents to gays is that "we like to rape them with broomsticks".  See Chadwick , Scavone and Hwong letters in response.
• 16 February 2005 New York Sun article "ROTC Program May Be Revived At Columbia U".  Note:  The Chairman of Columbia's Senate Task Force on restoration of ROTC, Prof. James Applegate said "If the faculty senate voted to restore ROTC ... the program would probably come without academic credit, and ROTC educators would receive the title of instructor rather than professor. Drill instruction would probably take place off campus."
• 18 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Ghosts of '68 Haunt Latest ROTC Debate: Current Fight Over ROTC's Return to Campus is Newest Chapter in Program's Controversial History".  Note:  Participants at the Columbia Senate Town Hall on ROTC looked ahead to the wider campus debate on the ROTC restoration proposal.  Student Nate Treadwell said “This shouldn’t be up to majority opinion... Nondiscrimination is a principle that shouldn’t be waived if any number of students want it”.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Henry Waller, Columbia Business School '05.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Shane Hachey GS '04.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Eric Chen GS '06.  Note:  Chen discusses ROTC and Columbia's non-discrimination policy and argues that excluding ROTC jeopardizes the university's principles of diversity and inclusiveness.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Jason Van Steenwyk.  Note: Jason Van Steenwyk runs the Countercolumn blog.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Sarah Walter.  Note: Sarah Walter runs the Trying to Grok blog.
• 21 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Rosenthal Wilfully Overlooks the Positive Aspects of Military Service" by Joshua Chadwick, Law ’05.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 21 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Columnist Espouses a “Narrow Political Agenda" by Adam Scavone.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 25 February 2005 Columbia University Senate "Emails Sent to the ROTC Task Force".
• 25 February 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Free To Be You and Me" by Shane Hachey GS '04.
• 25 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Columnist’s Depiction of ROTC Was Inaccurate and Harmful" by Taylor Hwong, SEAS ’92.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 28 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "U. Senate Meets, Responds to MEALAC Debate".  Note: "James Applegate, co-chair of the ROTC Task Force Committee, presented a report on the Town Hall Meeting about the issue at Columbia on Feb. 15".
• 3 March 2005 Columbia Spectator editorial "ROTC: Return".  Note:  Columbia's student newspaper said "While we oppose many of the military’s policies, particularly its “don’t ask, don’t tell” program, we recognize the valuable ideological and socioeconomic diversity that a military presence would bring to campus... As we hope the military would change our campus, so would we hope to change the military".
• 3 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Columbia Liberals and ROTC Conservatives Can Help Each Other" by Jason Elliott.  Note:  The author said "As the debate over whether to bring the ROTC back to Columbia rages, I’d like to be one of the first left-wingers to rise in support of reinstating the program... If we—the left wing—want to fundamentally change the way America’s military is managed, we should do it from the inside, by becoming the leadership: officers in the armed forces, or officials in the Department of Defense".
• 3 March 2005 Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web Today" item "The New Generation Gap" by James Taranto.  Note: Taranto cites the pro-ROTC editorial and column in the Columbia Spectator and suggests that students are "more patriotic today than their predecessors were in the 1960s and '70s".
• 3 March 2005 GedankenTravelExperiment blog item "ROTC".  Note:  The author criticizes reasons cited against ROTC at Columbia.
• 13 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "A Vote for ROTC Is a Vote for Affirmative Action".
• 13 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "ROTC: Democracy's Champions".
• 18 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "ROTC Addresses Class Inequality".
• 18 March 2005 Students United for America flyer "Why is the Reserves Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Right for Columbia?".
• 22 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Against the Proposed ROTC Restoration" by Yi-Sheng Ng, Karyn Lukoff, Katherine Redmon, Christian Sjulssen, and Dustin Brauneck.  Note:  The Columbia Queer Alliance, the Coming Out Group and Q, Barnard College’s queer student organization, say that "Members of the ROTC have been expelled after marching in a PRIDE parade, even though some were straight allies".
• 22 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Pretend Nobody Gets Hurt" by Matt Grice.
• 28 March 2005 Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC "More emails to the Senate ROTC Task Force".  Note: One writer says that a "quick review" of ROTC courses suggest they are "hardly likely to be of interest to non-ROTC students".  A good counterexample is the course detailed in MIT Sloan Fellows Learn from Army During Leadership Exercise.  The same writer says the "oft-repeated claim is that military experience is widely valued by civilian employers" which the writer thinks this is "generally untrue".  Some good example on this issue are in the Associated Press article "Secretive Military Units Provide Training Ground for Israel's High-Tech Leaders".  Perhaps there would be more such examples in the United States if universities such as Columbia had ROTC programs. 
• 29 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "When Exclusion Breeds Exclusion" by Dennis Schmelzer.  Note:  The author asks why the military, which was ahead of society in integration of blacks and women, lags on integration of gays, and suggests that one factor is the absence of ROTC programs at elite universities.
• 1 April 2005 Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC "Results of deliberations".  Note:  The Task Force deadlocked 5-5 on the question of whether ROTC should return despite the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 5 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Debate Advances Toward Senate Decision: Task Force Split on Recommendation; Debate Centers on Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy".  Note:  The full University Senate is planning a May 6 vote on the proposal.
• 5 April 2005 Columbia Spectator column "A Betrayal in Soldier's Clothing" by Matt Smith.  Note:  Smith calls for taxpayer-funded scholarships to be free of payback provisions such as military service.
• 6 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Panel Examines ROTC Conflict: Clash Between CU Non-Discrimination Policy And Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Stressed".
• 6 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Conservativism and Feminism Combined".  Note: Tammy Bruce, an author and former chapter head of the National Organization for Women said "the exclusion of the ROTC is no different from the exclusion of other on-campus groups".
• 14 April 2005 New York Post column "Columbia's Bigotry" by Charles E. F. Millard.  Note:  The column describes how supporters of ROTC at Columbia offered to make common cause with opponents of the "Don't ask Don't tell" law and were spurned.
• 14 April 2005 Power Line blog item "Don't ask, we'll tell".  Note:  The preference of anti-ROTC forces at Columbia for a "Teach-In" instead of a debate is criticized.
• 14 April 2005 "Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University: Statement of the Student Senate Executive Committee".  Note:  The statement said "We believe ROTC’s war-making and policy against homosexuals are violations of the sacredness of human life" and urged shunning the military "until drastic democratic reforms are made to US foreign and domestic policy ... Some of us are pacifists and others of us simply reject the US military in its current manifestation".
• 15 April 2005 Columbia University Senate "Transcript of Special Senate Meeting on ROTC".
• 15 April 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC handout for 15 April Columbia University Senate debate on the Proposal to Restore ROTC "Salient points for ROTC".
• 15 April 2005 Power Line blog item "Honor and disgrace".  Note:  Scott Johnson recalls the "military brief" solicited by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger in the University of Michigan affirmative action case and asks why Bollinger "isn't equally solicitous of those signatories on the subject of ROTC on campus".
• 15 April 2005 "Report to the Columbia University Senate and Personal Statement" by Nate Walker, co-chair of Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC.  Note:  Walker amends his original comments on the meaning of the wide agreement that ROTC should return to Columbia if there were no "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  
• 18 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "U. Senate Hears ROTC Findings: Task Force Split 5-5 On Proposal to Return ROTC Immediately".
• 19 April 2005 Personal Statement by Fred W. Cook "ROTC at Columbia".  Note:  This statement outlines a plan for an ROTC presence at Columbia.  It is similar to the plan discussed in 2004 for Harvard as outlined in a statement by LTC Brian Baker and covered in a 16 December 2004 Wall Street Journal article.  Fred Cook is a member of the Defense Business Board.  Transcripts of 14 May 2003, 30 July 2003 and 12 May 2004 Defense Business Board meetings discussing return of ROTC to elite colleges contain key comments by him, thus his personal statement is likely to represent Pentagon thinking.
• 21 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Debate Continues at Open Forum".  Note:  Nate Walker, co-chair of the Columbia University Senate ROTC Task Force, seems to indicate that all 5 who voted for the "ROTC if no DADT" resolution voted against the "ROTC even if DADT" resolution, meaning that the sole abstention on the "ROTC if no DADT" resolution was by an ROTC supporter.
• 25 April 2005 Speakers and transcript of the panel and discussion, “Perspectives on the Future of ROTC at Columbia”.
• 26 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Panelists Examine ROTC's Role on Campus: With University Senate Vote Approaching, 'Advocates for Columbia ROTC' Sponsors Forum".
• 27 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Univ. Senate Advances Toward Vote on ROTC: Executive Committee Approves Resolution on Future of ROTC for May 6 Senate Body Vote".  Note:  ROTC Task Force co-chairman Prof. Applegate raised the possibility that a vote on ROTC may not occur at the 6 May Columbia University Senate meeting.
• 29 April 2005 article ""Don't ask, don't tell" and ROTC: Taking the moral high ground at Columbia" by Michael Segal.
• 29 April 2005 "For ROTC at Columbia" by Prof. Allan Silver, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.  Note:  Prof. Silver, who supported removal of ROTC in 1969, argues for the importance in reducing the civilian - military gap.
• 29 April 2005 Columbia News Tonight segment "Should ROTC return to Columbia? A Roundtable Discussion. Guests: Nate Walker, Co-Chair, ROTC Task Force; Scott Stewart, Columbia student, former soldier."
• 1 May 2005 New York Times article "Offering R.O.T.C. a Truce".  Note:  The movement at Columbia to restore ROTC has "signaled a shift in student attitudes toward the military and encouraged vigorous conversation on campus."
• 1 May 2005 "The Case for ROTC at Columbia" by Prof. James H. Applegate, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University, Co-Chair, Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC.  Note: Prof. Applegate suggests that the arguments against ROTC "arise from our looking inward and seeing Columbia in isolation".
• 1 May 2005 INTEL DUMP blog item "Bringing ROTC back to Columbia's campus".  Note:  In the responses to the item, Dave Glazier gives practical reasons why having ROTC is more important than whether recruiting is on campus.
• 1 May 2005 Outside the Whale blog item "Columbia May Reinstate the Campus Reserve Officers Training Corps Chapter".  Note:  The importance of universities such as Columbia being involved in ROTC is stressed because the military now has a "greater emphasis on dealing with the threat of terrorism but also democratization and nation and institution building".
• 2 May 2005 "Tell Me Again Why Columbia Should Restore ROTC" by Columbia Alliance for ROTC.
• 4 May 2005 "Statement for the Final Report of the Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC" by Sean Wilkes CC '06, Member of the Task Force and Chairman of Advocates for Columbia ROTC.
• 4 May 2005 Columbia Community Discusses "Don't ask, don't tell" and ROTC.  Note:  A set of actual e-mails debating the "Don't ask, don't tell" issue from a variety of perspectives.
• 5 May 2005 Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC "Final Report of the ROTC Task Force". 
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Executive Committee "Resolution to Establish a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Program at Columbia University". 
• 6 May 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC statement on ROTC at Columbia and “don’t ask, don’t tell”
• 6 May 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Senate Rejects ROTC's Return: Resolution Overturned in Last Meeting of Year".  Note:  The Columbia University Senate rejected a proposal to invite ROTC to Columbia (this article reports the initial inaccurate tally).  The reason most cited was the "Don't ask, don't tell law".
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate transcript of Senate meeting on ROTC.
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate "Columbia University Senate vote on resolution to establish an ROTC program at Columbia University".  Note:  The Senate includes faculty, administrators and students.  Although the vote was reported slightly differently initially, it was 53-10 against establishing an ROTC program.
• 7 May 2005 New York Times article "Columbia U. Senate Votes Against Return of R.O.T.C.".  Note:  Alan Brinkley, Columbia's provost, said during the debate "Would we agree to an organization on campus," that allowed "African-Americans to join this organization only if they pass for white?"
• 8 May 2005 INTEL DUMP blog item "Columbia U. makes a myopic move".
• 8 May 2005 article "After the Vote: Why ROTC Belongs At Columbia" by Prof. Allan Silver, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.
• 9 May 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Reserve Officer Training Corps: After Semester of Debate, ROTC To Stay Off Campus".
• 9 May 2005 New York Sun editorial "AWOL at Columbia".  Note:  The Sun notes "the lack of protest of the policies of the Islamist enemy in respect of gay rights" at Columbia and argues that one is not "helping the causes of tolerance or civil rights by staying on the sidelines of this war".
• 9 May 2005 Inside Higher Ed article "Columbia Says No, Still, to ROTC".
• 11 May 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial "A Tale of Two Columbias: The patriotic and the politically correct".  Note:  See responses on 17 May and 26 May.
• 13 May 2005 Wall Street Journal column "Neither Fools Nor Cowards: Barriers between military service and higher education do a disservice to both" by Eliot A. Cohen.  Note:  Prof. Cohen discusses the civilian-military divide in light of Columbia's rejection of ROTC and the fact that "the institutional military is not all that eager to re-establish a ROTC presence on elite campuses".  See letter in response on 18 May.  Prof. Cohen, a Harvard ROTC graduate, is pictured here at his son's Harvard ROTC commissioning.
• 13 May 2005 Villainous Company blog item "The Wisdom of Solomon".  Note:  Cassandra discusses the University Senate vote against ROTC at Columbia and argues that using the Solomon Amendment for ROTC removes the argument that universities with ROTC are tacitly expressing approval for the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 16 May 2005 New York Sun article "Fossella: Federal Money at Risk For Columbia".  Note:  A New York City congressman suggests that the Secretary of Defense could invoke the Solomon Amendment over Columbia's rejection of ROTC.
• 17 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Columbia, ROTC and Sexual Orientation" by President Lee C. Bollinger (also on Columbia's Web site).  Note:  Responding to an editorial, Pres. Bollinger writes "After acknowledging that reasonable people can differ over the military's prohibition on openly gay and lesbian servicemen and women, the editorial goes on to suggest that those of us who disagree with that prohibition are anti-military, and to question our motivations."  However, this is not an accurate portrayal of the debate at Columbia.  As the Columbia ROTC Task Force report makes clear, proponents of the return of ROTC to Columbia also opposed "Don't ask, don't tell".  The disagreement between pro and anti-ROTC sides at Columbia was whether the benefits of ROTC outweighed the disagreements with the federal law.  Pres. Bollinger went on to blame the government for putting an end to the discussion about ROTC at Columbia, noting that his vote against return of ROTC "was based on a serious concern for the integrity of the university in the face of the federal government's use of the power of the purse to force institutions to compromise their principles".  However, the best indications of Pentagon intentions available before the vote were that "the Pentagon cannot provide a positive request or indication to Columbia to reestablish an ROTC unit on campus because, to do so, would trigger the Solomon Amendment should Columbia turn down the request".  See also a letter in response on 26 May.
• 18 May 2005 New York Sun article "Columbia To Consider Bringing ROTC Back to Campus".  Note:  The chairman of the board of trustees, David Stern, said he is pushing to the forefront of the board's agenda the issue of the university's policy toward ROTC.
• 18 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Denying Students ROTC" by David Thomas.  Note:  Responding to Prof. Cohen's article on 13 May, Thomas states that "denying students exposure to ROTC and military history is as short-sighted as eliminating, say, women's studies."
• 19 May 2005 New York Sun editorial "Wisdom of Solomon".  Note:  The Sun calls for the trustees of Columbia to restore ROTC and notes that "many of those most committed to pressing the government to change its policy toward gays in the military are those asking that Columbia open its doors to ROTC."  For examples, see the Columbia University Senate Task Force Report, this email discussion and this proposal for immediate changes in the law.
• 19 May 2005 Inside Higher Ed article "ROTC Debate Not Over at Columbia".  Note:  The board of trustees will meet on 4 June and "has invited Senate representatives from both sides of the debate to answer questions on that, and a host of other issues". 
• 20 May 2005 New York Daily News editorial "Columbia declares war on ROTC".
• 23 May 2005 New York Daily News column "Columbia's old elite a new ROTC enemy" by Shane Hachey.  Note:  The submitted text is here.
• 23 May 2005 Voice of America story "U.S. Supreme Court Will Review Law that Denies Funding to Campuses that Bar Military".  Note:  Columbia University student Scott Stewart, a gay veteran who supports ROTC on campus, says you have to associate with the military to influence it.
• 26 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Columbia's 'Compromising' Exactly What Principles?" by Irving Louis Horowitz.  Note:  Prof. Horowitz responds to President Bollinger's letter about the editorial on ROTC at Columbia.
• 30 May 2005 Washington Times column "Honor thy soldiers" by Suzanne Fields.  Note:  Fields discusses the University Senate vote against ROTC at Columbia and quotes Harvard President Lawrence Summers as saying that military service is "vitally important to the freedom that makes possible institutions like Harvard".
• Spring 2005 Columbia magazine article "University Senate Says No to ROTC".  Note:  Although the Senate vote was not binding "the administration has pledged to respect the vote".  Nate Walker '08TC, who co-chaired the ROTC Task Force, said "It's clear to me, from my work on the senate, that when the military stops its invidious discriminatory practices, Columbia probably will support ROTC's return", referring to the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  Provost Alan Brinkley, who abstained from voting as is his custom, despite an impassioned anti-ROTC speech, said "there does not seem to be strong intrinsic opposition toward the military, other than with regard to this discriminatory policy".
• August 2005 American Council of Trustees and alumni article "Universities and the Military: What You Should Know About the Upcoming Supreme Court Case" by Melvin H. Bernstein.  Note:  The article recounts the history of the Solomon Amendment and compares the attitude of the presidents of Harvard and Columbia towards ROTC.
• September 2005 VFW Magazine article "Anti-Military Sentiments Persist on Elite Campus".  Note: Many of the leaders of the Columbia effort were quoted, including Advocates for Columbia ROTC chairman Sean Wilkes and alumni group Columbia Alliance for ROTC chairman Ted Graske CC'59.
• 12 October 2005 American Council of Trustees and Alumni press release "Hypocrisy 101: The Academy and Military Recruiters".  Note:  ACTA lists the federal funds at risk under the Solomon Amendment.  Of the listed colleges barring ROTC, Columbia leads with $457 million at risk.
• 21 October 2005 Columbia University Senate "Minutes of September 16, 2005".  Note:  Senator Paul Duby reported on the discussions at the June Columbia University Trustees meeting about the ROTC issue.  When "a Trustee asked if there was anything else the Trustees were expected to do on this subject; Sen. Duby said Provost Alan Brinkley answered in one word: No".  The minutes also note that "the Task Force made some recommendations for improving conditions for Columbia students who are pursuing ROTC off campus, at Manhattan College or Fordham. One was to provide more assistance in the form of transportation, or maybe a small office on the Columbia campus. Another was to assure that any students barred from ROTC because of their sexual preference would be eligible for equivalent financial support from Columbia. Sen. Duby said he and Sen. Applegate would discuss these issues with the provost."
• 25 October 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Columbia Plays Dirty Pool" by John Mateus.  Note:  A Columbia Law student calls interference with military interviews, which blocked him from being interviewed, "underhanded and sabotage" and criticizes the unwillingness of Columbia to stop the interference.  See also responses by Karyn Lukoff, Michelle Rutherford and Cuauhtemoc Ortega.
• November 2005 The Blue and White article "Embedded in New York: Or, How I Learned to Stop Whining and Love ROTC".  Note:  The article describes some of the ROTC training for Columbia students "In one Chemical Warfare exercise, Wilkes had to walk through a gas chamber filled with CS gas (ortho-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile). Cadets wore gas masks, but were required to remove them in the middle of the room, state their name and social security number, and answer a simple question such as, "What's one plus one?""
• 7 December 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Hears Solomon Amendment Case".  Note:  The article mentions how Solicitor General Paul Clement began to argue that the 2004 change to the Solomon Amendment did not demand greater access for the military than other employers and Justice Scalia said he was "galloping in the wrong direction".
• 12 January 2005 GayPatriot blog item "Columbia University Wants It All".  Note:  A gay servicemember says "If Columbia University doesn’t want the federal government on its campus, fine. But they shouldn’t expect federal dollars."

2006:

• 18 January 2006 Columbia Spectator op-ed "Veterans Deserve Better" by Chris Kulawik CC'08.  Note: Kulawik describes an incident on Activities Day in which a student visiting the Columbia Military Society table was "publicly insulted for being both a minority and a veteran" by three people in a "violent rant" in which "the table nearly flipped".  The student "submitted a complaint to his dean with hopes of a thorough investigation and ultimately disciplinary action against those students who harassed him" and got no response from the administration.  See responses by Jonah Birch, CC ‘05 and Todd Murphy, GS '08.
• 25 January 2006 Columbia Spectator article "A Firm Stance: CU Marine Reservist Targeted In Angry Confrontation; No Disciplinary Action Taken".  Note:  An anti-military incident recounted in an Op-ed column is covered by the Columbia student newspaper.  The Spectator claims that students urging other students to sign up for ROTC was "not allowed on campus" at the time.  This seems wrong.  Even after the 3rd Circuit court decision allowing bans on external recruiters, students always retained the freedom to urge other students to enlist to fight for their country.  After the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, the 3rd Circuit halted implementation of its ruling, removing the restriction on external recruiters.
• 25 January 2006 U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University press release "Anti-Military Discrimination at Columbia".  Note:  The group "asks that Columbia University amend its Discrimination and Harassment Policy to grant all veterans and military-related persons protected status."
• 27 January 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "The Conservative Witch Hunt" by Zach Zill CC '06.  Note: One of the students who "confronted" pro-ROTC students in the "anti-ROTC incident on Activities Day" denounces the 25 January Spectator news article as part of a "witch-hunt" and denies having made offensive remarks attributed to him.
• 30 January 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Revisiting Vietnam" by Monique Dols GS '06.  Note: Dols observes that "ROTC supporters are making headway by recruiting for the Fordham University and Manhattan College ROTC programs on campus. By increasing the ranks of military personnel on campus, they are laying the groundwork for the program’s future return."  She regards this as a negative development and urges people to "expose the ugly underbelly of US aggression in the world".
• 1 February 2006 New York Sun article "Veterans Take Grievances to Columbia Provost".  Note:  The provost, who spoke passionately against ROTC on campus in May 2005, was to hear complaints about harassment.  The article lists an incorrect tally for the Columbia Senate vote on ROTC in May 2005; it was 53-10.
• 9 February 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Sanchez Lodges Protest: Reserve Marine Files Grievance With SDA Against ISO Protest".  Note:  University spokeswoman Susan Brown said Columbia already includes military status as a protected category in its speech code, and the protection is not limited to Vietnam-era veterans.  International Socialist Organization member Monique Dols GS ’06 said post-Vietnam veterans should not have such protection since they enlisted voluntarily.
• 13 February 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed "ROTC and the Ivory Tower: Cease Fire" by Adam Weinstein.  Note:  A self described "liberal war resister" suggests that if you have disagreements with current military practices "You bring ROTC back to Columbia, and you sign yourself up".  He suggests that to do otherwise is to "keep the military and the ivory tower separate and go on with your life of smug self-satisfaction" and will result in "marginalizing yourselves and alienating potential supporters".  See letter in response on 21 February.
• 21 February 2006 Columbia Spectator letter "Military Veterans Bring Diverse Voices to Columbia Community" by The Executive Board of U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University (MilVets).  Note:  The MilVets point out that Adam Weinstein’s February 13th column is an example of the political diversity of military veterans on elite campuses.
• 23 February 2006 Columbia University statement of nondiscriminatory policies "Equal educational opportunity and student nondiscrimination policies and procedures on discrimination and harassment".  Note:  The statement begins with the words "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination".  Since the previous antidiscrimination rules had been used to argue against ROTC on the basis of discrimination against openly homosexual people in the military this wording is interesting because "Don't ask, don't tell" is the law, and there fore not unlawful. 
• 6 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment: Columbia Could Face Choice Between ROTC and Federal Funding".  Note:  The ruling says nothing about ROTC and the reasoning used in upholding the Solomon Amendment, that "recruiters are not part of the law school", does not apply to a full ROTC program, where instructors are faculty members and ROTC courses are in the university's list of courses.  However, the Pentagon's likely offer to Columbia was an ROTC satellite office, not a full ROTC program, for which the faculty appointment and course offering issues would not apply.
• 8 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment: Unanimous Ruling Affirms Military’s Right to Recruit on College Campuses".  Note:  ROTC opponent Nate Walker TC '07 said it was likely that the Pentagon would use the court victory to seek to restore ROTC at Columbia, while Sean Wilkes CC '06, head of Advocates for Columbia ROTC, said it was unlikely.
• 10 March 2006 The New Republic article "War College" by Peter Beinart.  Note:  Beinart describes the scene outside the Columbia University Senate vote on ROTC on 6 May 2005: "Outside the senate auditorium, some pro-rotc students hung a banner reading a vote for rotc is a vote for the heroes of our generation. With the Court decision as her pretext, Senator Clinton's opportunity is clear: Go to Columbia and tell its leaders that those students are right... Today, the Serviceman's Legal Defense Network--which represents gays and lesbians in the military--understands the same thing. Which is why it does not oppose rotc on campus, even as it struggles heroically against "don't ask, don't tell." It is Bollinger and Brinkley who, by shunning the military, have placed themselves in the oppositional, anti-liberal tradition of the New Left."
• 22 March 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Rumsfeld 1, Columbia 0" by Chris Kulawik CC '08.  Note: Kulawik points out that Columbia has many programs that discriminate by race and gender and concludes that to "claim that ROTC is the only such case ... is blatant hypocrisy".  He also recounts how anti-ROTC students told him that “The racist military takes advantage of minority students; they aren’t able to understand what exactly they’re getting into.”
• 24 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Discrimination Policy Amended: New Policy Wording Adds Military Status to Protected Group List".  Note:  When Columbia revised its antidiscrimination rules to include all military veterans it began the statement with the words "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination".  Since the previous antidiscrimination rules had been used to argue against ROTC on the basis of discrimination against openly homosexual people in the military this wording is interesting because "Don't ask, don't tell" is the law, and therefore not unlawful.  However, this Spectator article adds another possible explanation.  University spokesperson Susan Brown said that the new statement "is a semantic clarification, not a policy shift. New York State Law had already held military status as a protected category, and the old policy included “any other legally protected status”".  This suggests the possibility that Columbia may have been trying to include in its policy all forms of unlawful discrimination without meaning to accept forms of discrimination mandated for the military by federal law, but Columbia has not commented more definitively on the wording change.
• 24 March 2006 Columbia Spectator editorial "Opportunity Disguised".  Note:  "Getting as many liberal-minded Columbia lawyers as possible, both gay and straight, into the military’s judge advocate general corps would be one of the best ways to turn the tide against “don’t ask, don’t tell” ... Shunting ROTC off to Fordham is a great symbolic way to protest the military’s policies, but it does very little to accomplish real progress. Increasing Columbia’s involvement with the military through recruiting and ROTC might rankle some, but it would be the best way for Columbians to work for justice."
• 5 April 2006 Detroit News column "Military academy attracts new 'greatest generation'" by Thomas Bray.  Note: Bray observes that 62% of the Army's officers come from ROTC programs "which been making something of a comeback on college campuses" and notes the student-led effort to return ROTC to Columbia.
• 28 April 2006 WNET TV (Channel 13) NY Voices report "Campus Politics".  Note:  Sean Wilkes CC '06, chairman of Advocates for Columbia ROTC discusses the history of ROTC at Columbia.
• 10 May 2006 My Learning Curve blog item "Shane Hachey (GS 04) letter to Columbia University Senate.  Subject: Columbia v. The Military".  Note:  On the first anniversary of the Columbia University Senate vote against ROTC Hachey notes that "this vote had no tangible effect on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. It did not "send a message" to anyone in Washington except that our university is hostile to the military".
• 17 May 2006 New York Sun article "At Columbia, First ROTC Event Since '72".  Note:  In contrast to the annual ROTC Commissioning ceremony at Harvard, "the commissioning ceremony is sponsored by the students, not the university."  Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley, who spoke passionately against ROTC at the 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate meeting that rejected ROTC, will attend the 19 May commissioning.
• 1 June 2006 "Columbia Hosts ROTC Commissioning Ceremony".  Note:  The ceremony was held on 19 May.
• 31 August "The Movement to Restore ROTC at Columbia: Historical Background" by Sean Wilkes CC'06, Chairman, Advocates for Columbia ROTC.
• 8 September 2006 "Military Recruiting at Columbia's Activities Day".
• 12 September 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Agents of Change" by Joanna Bove.  Note: Bove suggests that those who blocked changing Columbia's policy on ROTC were agents of change.  See letter on 15 September.   
• 15 September 2006 Columbia Spectator letter "ROTC not Such a Victory: Progressives Should Welcome Change" by Eric Chen GS'06.  Note:  Responding to a 12 September column, Chen notes "it is an irony that those who blocked changing Columbia's policy on ROTC would call themselves "agents of change"".
• 11 October 2006 Columbia University event Discussion of Citizenship and Military Service at Columbia University.  Note:  Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer, co-authors of AWOL: the Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service—and How It Hurts Our Country talked and answered questions at Columbia.
• 20 October 2006 Columbia Spectator letter "LGBT Groups Create Community, Should Also Focus on National Issues" by Sean Wilkes, CC '06.  Note:  A recent ROTC graduate discusses an article focusing on the atmosphere for gender identity at Columbia and urges activists to focus on national issue too, such as changing the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 24 October 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Doing Our Part in a Time of War" by Eric Chen.  Note: One of the main leaders of the ROTC and veterans movements at Columbia wonders whether to re-enlist or stay in civilian life after graduation.
• November 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Columbia’s Warrior".  Note:  Matt Mireles interviewed Josh Arthur CC '04, in Iraq after graduating from Columbia College and Army ROTC.  Arthur describes how he decided to go into an Army combat unit.
• 3 November 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Reassessing Kerry's Botched Joke" by Brandon Hammer.  Note:  Hammer says it is "pretty true" that students who don't do well in school get "stuck in Iraq".  See response on 10 November.
• 10 November 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-ed column "Stupid Soldiers" by Matthew Dunn and Michael Podberesky.  Note:  Responding to Brandon Hammer's 3 November column, they assemble the evidence that soldiers are above average on many measures of intelligence and income, with fewer at the high and low extremes.  The lack of an ROTC program at elite colleges may account for some of the data.  Similar data was assembled by the New York Times.
• 14 November 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed column "Wake Up Dems, Liberalism is Dead" by Rudi Batzell.  Note:  Batzell calls for increasing the proportion of the military that comes from higher socioeconomic groups, but doesn't call for restoring ROTC at Columbia.
• 25 November 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Letters From Baghdad: Our First Dispatch From the Front Line" by Josh Arthur CC '04.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, is stationed in a Sunni area and describes finding bodies of Shiites "in open fields near mosques, on heavily trafficked corners, or simply in sites that are known as places to expect to find bodies."
• 1 December 2006 The New Republic article "The Academy and Iraq: War College" by Andrew Delbanco.  Note:   Prof. Delbanco writes "For the vast majority of students and faculty in places like Columbia--it's different for support and maintenance staff, who are more likely to have friends or family in the line of fire--war is an utter abstraction rather than an imaginable fact.  Perhaps the deepest divide in our country today runs between those for whom the war is a relentless threat to loved ones and those for whom it is a TV show to be switched on and off.  At places like Columbia, the former is our most underrepresented minority group."  See the 18 December Weekly Standard response and the 1 January response by Austin Byrd.
• 2 December 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Letter from Baghdad - Dispatch # 2" by Josh Arthur CC '04.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, describes how Iraqis are targeting each other more than Americans, but counterinsurgency remains important.
• 4 December 2006 New York Post column "Diversity Double-Talk: Ivy's 'Inclusion' Excludes Military" by Matt Sanchez.
• 5 December 2006 BWOG (Columbia University Blue and White Blog) item "Here we go again...".  Note:  An item on the incident in which Columbia student Matt Sanchez was insulted for his military service is followed by a wide-ranging discussion that included ROTC.  Issues discussed include the question of why Columbia bans ROTC, citing discrimination against gays, but does not ban Red Cross blood drives in which gay men are not allowed to give blood.
• 16 December 2006 Marine Corps Commissioning Ceremony at Columbia University - Mark Xue, CC 06.
• 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 response by Austin Byrd.

2007:

• January/February 2007 Columbia College Today letters from Josh Arthur CC'04: 7 November, 13 November, 25 November, 19 December.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from ROTC and Columbia, describes his deployment and experiences in Iraq.
• 1 January 2007 The Weekly Standard letter "Knights of Columbia" by Austin Byrd.  Note:  A first year student and Marine Corps officer candidate responds to the 18 December Weekly Standard item on the military and Columbia by noting that "the general feeling toward the military community is one of apathy, which in some ways is more difficult to confront than the passion of campus radicals".  Byrd explains that the pro-military students at Columbia "have adopted the strategy of promoting interaction between the military community and the general student body" to overcome this apathy.
• 1 January 2007 Marine Corps Times column "Missing the big picture" by Matt Sanchez.  Note:  Military veteran and Columbia student Matt Sanchez describes how at a recruiting event a group of students started chanting "The military exploits minorities!" to which he responded "I'm a minority; I joined the military, and I don't think I'm being exploited." and was told "That's because you're stupid — too stupid to realize you're being used as cannon fodder." Sanchez goes on describe that "For the academics, joining the Corps over attending an Ivy League school was an obvious sign of desperation."
• 8 January 2007 The Morningside Post (official blog for Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs) blog video item "Columbia's Student Soldiers". Note: Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley said "We're not a particularly attractive campus for ROTC because we don't have space, and the level of interest among our students would probably be relatively low and the Pentagon has not asked us to host an ROTC unit, so its not as if we've refused".
• 15 January 2007 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Special Web-Only: Interview with Lt. Josh Arthur, CC ‘04" Matt Mireles.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, describes how he decided to serve in the military.
• 18 January 2007 The New Republic column "Military Academy" by Anthony Grafton.  Note:  A Princeton professor notes that Princeton has more connections to the military than many other elite colleges, and recommends that "We who teach young men and women need to know more about what we ask some of them to do on our behalf and what it takes to do their jobs".
• 22 January 2007 Columbia Spectator op-ed "No Shame in Service" by Sean Wilkes CC'06.  Note:  The recently graduated head of Advocates for Columbia ROTC quotes Lt. Gen. Sir William F. Butler, who warned that "The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards."
• 24 January 2007 Military Recruiting at Barnard's Activities Fair 2007
• 27 January 2007 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed "Gliberalism" by Ruth Wisse.  Note:  Professor Wisse, a member of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, cites the ban on ROTC at elite universities as a prime example of an attitude "that leaves to others the responsibility for governance, and arrogates to itself the right to criticize".  See 28 January comment by Columbia Prof. Allan Silver.
• 28 January 2007 Comments on Prof. Ruth Wisse's article "Gliberalism" by Prof. Allan Silver.  Note:  Silver, a sociology professor at Columbia and a a leading proponent on the faculty for return of ROTC to Columbia, suggests that both the universities and the country's leadership could do better to create an atmosphere conducive towards return of ROTC to elite universities.  His comments were prompted by Prof. Wisse's 27 January article in the Wall Street Journal.
• 1 February 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Letter from Baghdad - Dispatch # 3" by Josh Arthur CC '04.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, describes an engagement with a lone sniper and how his men showed restraint until they were confident they had identified the attacker.
• 8 February 2006 The Eye (Columbia Spectator) article "Letter from Baghdad - Dispatch # 4" by Josh Arthur CC '04.  Note:  Arthur, recently graduated from Columbia and ROTC, describes his most enduring memory in Baghdad, retrieving a soldier with a fatal wound. 
• 15 February 2007 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed "When Anti-war is Anti-peace" by Eric Chen GS'07.  Note:  One of the leaders of the ROTC and veterans' movements at Columbia observes how anti-war sentiment is undermining nation-building. Through an error, a non-final version of this article was published.  The version that was suppose to be published is here.
• 22 February 2007 Wall Street Journal article "A Retreat From Big Cities Hurts ROTC Recruiting: Though Army Seeks More Ethnic Officers, It Shuns Northeast" (free link with the article attributed to AP here).  Note: By having few ROTC programs in big cities, the military is missing out on recruits who have familiarity with foreign cultures and languages. One of the offices said of New York City "There were times when I felt like I was back in Iraq. There were people dressed in those man-dresses that they wear in Iraq. The women had veils. I know I shouldn't say this, but it made me want to look for IEDs".  Some additional material is at this free WSJ link.  See 25 February Intel Dump blog item for discussion.
• 25 February 2007 Intel Dump Blog item "ROTC retreats from American cities".  Note:  Blogger Phillip Carter discusses the 22 February WSJ article and many respond, including sources for the original article.
• 16 March 2007 film "Indoctrinate-U".  Note:  According to the film maker Evan Coyne Maloney, "about 5 minutes or so in the film" is material dealing with ROTC "near the end of the film. A number of people have told us they feel it is the most infuriating footage in the film." "The segment discusses both ROTC and military recruiters on campus, and the various efforts to bar them from campus. We have footage from San Francisco State, U.C. Berkeley, Columbia and Hobart. U.C. Santa Cruz, Yale.... We get right inside the protests themselves, some of which were quite nasty. All of this is discussed in the context of what sorts of views are welcome on campus (Ward Churchill, for example) and what is not (quite literally, the American flag, which was actually removed from a number of campuses immediately following the September 11th attacks). It packs quite an emotionally powerful punch."
• 19 March 2007 Columbia Spectator column "Bringing the Military to Columbia" by Matt Sanchez.  Note:  Sanchez describes discussions with Columbia officials about healing the rift between Columbia and the military.
• 17 May 2007 Remarks by the President at Joint Reserve Officer Training Corps Commissioning Ceremony.  (Video here)  Note:  President George W. Bush said "All of you have made many sacrifices to receive your commission. Yet some of you have had to endure even greater hardships -- because your universities do not allow ROTC on campus. For those of you in this position, this can require long commutes several times a week to another campus that does offer ROTC, so you can attend a military class, participate in a drill. Most of all, it means living a split existence -- where your life as a cadet or midshipmen is invisible to most of your fellow students.  Every American citizen is entitled to his or her opinion about our military. But surely the concept of diversity is large enough to embrace one of the most diverse institutions in American life. 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. To the cadets and midshipmen who are graduating from a college or university that believes ROTC is not worthy of a place on campus, here is my message: Your university may not honor your military service, but the United States of America does. And in this, the people's house, we will always make a place for those who wear the uniform of our country."  Among the officers sworn in at the ceremony were Erik Sand of Harvard, Diana Clough of Stanford and Bret Woellner from Columbia.
• 17 May 2007 Associated Press article "Bush says ROTC has a place on campus".  Note:  "Three of the officers in the White House ceremony came from schools that don't allow ROTC on campus, including Harvard University, Stanford University and Columbia University. Bush saluted their extra sacrifice."
• 17 May 2007 United States American Forces Press Service article "Gates Commissions ROTC Cadets at White House".  Note:  "A change in the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act allows the president, vice president or secretary of defense to administer the oath of commission or enlistment".
• 17 May 2007 United States Department of Defense photos "White House Commissioning Ceremony".  Note:  One of the photos is of U.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with graduating Harvard ROTC student Erik Sand and his mother.  More photos here and here.
• 17 May 2007 Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog item "Bush Assails Colleges That Shun ROTC Units".  Note:  The Chronicle notes that in addition to colleges that ban ROTC there are colleges where there is no ROTC program because the Pentagon concluded that there were "poor prospects of finding good recruits".
• 17 May 2007 New York Sun article "Bush Rebukes Universities On ROTC Ban".  Note:  "Yesterday's ceremony featured a diverse group of cadets from all 50 states and included a graduate student at Columbia, Bret Woellner, who was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army.  The president's statement took officials at a few leading universities aback. Spokesmen at NYU and Harvard and Yale universities, which also do not offer ROTC on campus, did not respond publicly.  Riaz Zaidi, president of Columbia's Hamilton Society, a military group, said the president's words were "gratifying."  Mr. Zaidi, a cadet in the Fordham ROTC program, said that while he thought the military should reconsider the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Columbia should reinstate the officer-training program regardless."  See response by Paul E. Mawn, head of Advocates for Harvard ROTC.
• 18 May 2007 New York Sun reader comment "Observations on the commissioning select ROTC students in the White House" by Paul E. Mawn.  Note:  The head of Advocates for Harvard ROTC responds to the previous day's article and wrote that universities "need diversity which is also based on opinion and provides a climate of tolerance and acceptance for undergraduates who believe in duty, honor and country".
• 18 May 2007 New York Sun editorial "Redeeming Columbia".  Note:  Citing Columbia's rejection of ROTC in 2005 and the ROTC commissioning of Columbia student Bret Woellner, the Sun wrote "a generation or so hence the shame of Columbia will be lessened, its honor redeemed by the fact that Lieutenant Woellner made his choice, got up early, did his drills, learned to lead, and, in the East Room of the White House, stepped forward to accept a commission from the Congress in a time of war."
• 27 May 2007 Washington Times editorial "Bring back ROTC".  Note:  "It's time for Harvard, Columbia, Yale and other schools to heed what President Bush said last week: "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." It's time to give ROTC a chance."
• 30 May 2007 Letter from Columbia University School of General Studies Dean Peter J. Awn inviting members of the armed services to apply to Columbia.  Note:  Dean Awn wrote that "the experience and talents that these students bring to Columbia enhance immeasurably the academic discourse in the classroom" and announced Columbia's new military-veteran Web site: www.columbia.edu/cu/gs/military.
• 7 September 2007 Wall Street Journal letter by Shane Cotner.  Note:  Responding to an article about the role of alumni in university governance, Cotner wrote "Dartmouth alumni are fortunate to have a man like T.J. Rodgers to represent their views, and a mechanism that allows those alumni to elect leaders like him to its board of trustees. As an alum of Columbia, my views have no comparable representation of which I am aware. When I hear about Columbia pursuing policies such as the banning of ROTC, and its lack of punishment for students who abuse conservative speakers, I realize I have no recourse whatsoever."
• 20 September 2007 Weekly Standard column "Columbia University: Ahmadinejad Yes, ROTC No" by William Kristol.  Note: Kristol contrasts hosting a talk and question period by the Iranian president with Columbia's prohibition of ROTC based on its campus.  
• 20 September 2007 Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web Today" item "Columbia's Priorities" by James Taranto.  Note:  Taranto embellishes William Kristol's point about the Iranian president and ROTC by noting that Iran executes people for homosexual acts.
• 20 September 2007 New York Sun article "Outrage Builds Over Ahmadinejad Visit to Columbia".  Note: Mr. McCain said "A man who is directing the maiming and killing of American troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university. Rather than rolling out the red carpet for the leader of a terrorist-sponsoring regime, Columbia should be welcoming the Reserve Officers' Training Corps back on campus to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line every day defending our freedom."
• 21 September 2007 Wall Street Journal editorial "Lee Bollinger, Tough Guy".  Note:  The Journal criticizes Columbia for hosting the Iranian president, yet not allowing ROTC.
• 22 September 2007 Fox & Friends Interview with Ted Graske Jr., Chairman of the Columbia Alliance for ROTC.  Note:  Graske discussed the irony of Columbia hosting Iranian President Ahmadinejad and banning ROTC from campus.
• 24 September 2007 Fox News interview with Columbia student Kelley Victor-Gasper '09.  Note:  Victor-Gasper, a Marine corps officer candidate notes the irony of Columbia's welcoming of Iranian President Ahmadinejad and banning of ROTC from campus.  He notes that the ROTC ban is a protest against US law about homosexuality in the military, yet Ahmadinejad's regime executes people for homosexuality.
• 27 September 2007 speech by Senator John McCain at the Hudson Institute.  Note:  McCain noted that the Iranian president was welcomed at Columbia but ROTC was not, and said "Harvard and other great American universities remain closed to ROTC, whose graduates represent the bulk of the officers commissioned into our Armed Forces each year.  Some academic elites may not like ROTC, and they are free to voice their objections.  But they are wrong, and I stand with the many graduates of these institutions who for years have been trying in vain to bring ROTC back to their campuses."
• 4 October 2007 Columbia Spectator column "ROTC Presence Is Not a Free Speech Issue" by Rebecca Evans.  Note:  Evans observes "We certainly did not, and will not, invite Ahmadinejad to set up a campus-based institution intended for recruitment and training... A more apt and pressing statement is this: if Columbia truly cares about questioning the ideologies and actions of those with whom it disagrees, it will welcome a military or government official who would be willing to speak to—and be spoken to by—the Columbia community".
• 29 October 2007 Columbia Spectator column "Why Columbia Needs the Marine Corps and Vice Versa" by Michael Christman.  Note:  A 2000 engineering graduate joined the Marines and urges others to do the same.  "How can Columbia hope to produce the next generation of American leaders if it refuses to walk a mile in the shoes of those of whom we ask the most?"
• 14 November 2007 Fordham Law Review 76: 955-79 "Myth and Reality of University Trusteeship in the Post-Enron Era" by José A. Cabranes.  Note:  Judge Cabranes, a trustee of Columbia University, notes how "trustees play no significant role even on major questions relating to the external relations of universities to the government that subsidizes them in so many ways, for example, whether a university should offer its students the opportunity to participate in reserved [sic] officers’ training corps (ROTC) programs.  The usual playbook is this: Trustees are informed by presidents that, for a variety of political or academic reasons, the faculty would find the return of ROTC intolerable and that any action to the contrary by trustees would make the president’s own position within the university untenable. Given the power of the faculties, the president is probably right. In any case, trustees will be reluctant to make the president vulnerable in the polity he knows far better than they."
• 2 December 2007 Army ROTC Commissioning Ceremony at Columbia University.

2008:

• 15 January 2008 Federal News Service transcript "The Democratic Debate in Las Vegas".  Note:  Moderator Tim Russert asked "There's a federal statute on the books which says that, if a college or university does not provide space for military recruiters or provide a ROTC program for its students, it can lose its federal funding.  Will you vigorously enforce that statute?" Senator Clinton said "Yes, I will...  I think that everyone should make available an opportunity for a young man or woman to be in ROTC, to be able to join the military and I'm going to do everything I can to support the men and women in the military and their families."  Russert followed-up by asking "Of the top 10 rated schools, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, they do not have ROTC programs on campus.  Should they?" and Clinton responded "Well, there are ways they can work out fulfilling that obligation. But they should certainly not do anything that either undermines or disrespects the young men and women who wish to pursue a military career."  To the same question about ROTC Senator Obama responded "Yes. One of the striking things, as you travel around the country, you go into rural communities and you see how disproportionally they are carrying the load in this war in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan. And it is not fair. Now, the volunteer Army, I think, is a way for us to maintain excellence."  Senator Edwards also responded affirmatively but switched immediately to discuss veterans' issue.  None of the candidates mentioned the "Don't ask, don't tell" law cited by these universities in banning ROTC. 
• 22 January 2008 Young America's Foundation ad "Bring ROTC back onto Columbia's campus!" in the Columbia Spectator.  Note:  The quotes are from the Las Vegas Democratic presidential debate.
• 28 January 2008 Columbia Spectator column "ROTC Policy Opens Columbia to Awkward Comparisons, Criticisms" by Josh Hirschland.  Note:  Hirschland observes that "student and administrative actions have made it easier for those from outside the University to caricature it as anti-American" and "Columbia may have to adapt to changing circumstances or risk irreparable damage to its standing".
• 29 January 2008 Columbia Spectator editorial "ROTC, Not DADT".  Note:  Columbia's student newspaper called for the return of ROTC to campus, arguing that "the military has too integral a role in American culture and society to be summarily banned from campus... to deny the military access to campus outright disengages Columbia from military issues and renders the University largely irrelevant in discussions of how issues like DADT should be addressed."  See letter on 31 January and a note from the editor on 31 January.
• 31 January 2008 Columbia Spectator "Letter to the Editor" by Aries Dela Cruz.  Note:  The vice president of the Columbia Queer Alliance criticizes the Spectator editorial that took a position on ROTC rather than following "Spec’s intended role as an objective instrument of campus media" and upholding "fundamental values of equality and justice".
• 31 January 2008 Columbia Spectator "Note From the Editor".  Note:  The editor clarifies that the 29 January editorial "was intended to convey the belief that Columbia should meet the needs of all its students. This includes the needs of those who desire to enlist in the ROTC program—but this also includes the needs of those who believe ROTC violates basic human rights."
• 4 February 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Candidates, Cadets Wrestle With ROTC Presence".  Note:  The article discusses how to create an atmosphere supportive of ROTC at Columbia, from increasing the number of ROTC students to pleading with the military ‘Please take us seriously—we want to serve.’
• 8 February 2008 Columbia Spectator column "Keep Columbia Out of the War" by David Judd.  Note:  Judd writes that it is a "black mark" on Columbia that a tenth of a percent of its endowment is invested in defense contractors, and "by maintaining its investments, Columbia does not maintain its neutrality. It has chosen to own a piece of the war".  He argues that Columbia should not support ROTC since the mission of the military "currently centers on a disastrous occupation".
• 25 February 2008 Columbia University Hamilton Society "Why We Serve" Event.  Note:  Photos from the even described the next day in a Columbia Spectator article.
• 26 February 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Military Men Reflect on Careers, Motivations".  Note:  The Hamilton Society, an undergraduate military advocacy group, sponsored a program in which recent veterans described their experiences in the military.  Air Force Staff Sergeant Jason Kimberling said “I’ve walked through a lot of villages in Afghanistan where the Taliban has come through and cut the hands off all the children... When you see those things, it’s pretty clear in my mind the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong. I know why I’m there.”  Photos are at this link.
• Spring 2008 Columbia Owl article "Invaluable Vets".  Note: Columbia "boasts the largest number of vets in the Ivy League".  Provost Alan Brinkley said “The opposition to ROTC was based on the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy that violates our own anti-discrimination rules...  I don’t believe those who opposed ROTC on those grounds had any animus towards veterans or the military.”
• 3 September 2008 Columbia University press release "ServiceNation Announces Columbia University to Host "ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum": Presidential Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama will Kick-off the Two-day Summit on Civic Engagement and Public Service on Sept. 11".  Note:  The 9/11 timing, the setting at Columbia and the inclusion of military veterans make it likely that the ROTC issue will be discussed.  As noted in the ServiceNation press release, "the public is encouraged to submit on-topic questions for the candidates at http://tinyurl.com/6jmhd5".
• 9 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Student Leaders Work to Expand ServiceNation Event".  Note:  Outside the 11 September presidential candidate forum at Columbia there will be "student groups managing voter registration, information booths to encourage community service, and bins for canned food donations. In addition to music and an open mic, organizers will set up a photo montage of students involved in community service". 
• 11 September 2008 Townhall column "An Absence of Service" by Austin Byrd.  Note:  Byrd, a sophomore at Columbia and a Marine Corps trainee, notes the upcoming presidential candidates' forum on national service and writes "Columbia University has shown a glaring lack of service for 40 years, following its ban of ROTC from its campus in 1968.  How can one discuss fulfilling service to one’s nation without considering what is one of the vital forms of fulfillment, that of military service?  ... In what moral calculus could one’s sexual orientation ever trump the monumental gift of citizenship in and open, free, and safe society?"  He also notes "Even small gestures, such as waiving the Physical Education requirement for students involved in training could have a positive cultural impact at Columbia."
• 11 September 2008 Congressional Quarterly transcript "Obama and McCain Remarks at ServiceNation Summit Forum".  Note:  Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama discussed ROTC.  McCain brought it up himself, saying "And frankly, we’re here in a wonderful institution. I’m proud that my daughter graduated from this school. But do you know that this school will not allow ROTC on this campus? I don’t think that’s right. Shouldn’t the students here be exposed to the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer?  ...  I would hope that these universities would re-examine that policy of not even allowing people who come here to represent the military and other Ivy League schools and then maybe they will be able to attract some more."  Senator Obama was asked by moderator Richard Stengel "your alma mater, invited President Ahmadinejad of Iran to be here last year, but they haven’t invited ROTC to be on campus since 1969. Should Columbia and elite universities that have excluded ROTC invite them back on campus?"  Obama replied "Yes. I think we’ve made a mistake on that.  I recognize that there are students here who have differences in terms of military policy. But the notion that young people here at Columbia or anywhere, in any university, aren’t offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake.  That does not mean we disregard any potential differences in various issues that are raised by the students here, but it does mean that we should have an honest debate while still offering opportunities for everybody to serve, and that’s something that I’m pretty clear about."
• 11 September 2008 ObamaPolitics.com blog item "Why McCain, Time, and Obama Are Wrong About ROTC".  Note: Wilson, author of Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest, points out the lack of parallelism between Columbia's hosting of an appearance by Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Columbia's decision not to host ROTC programs since one involves speech and the other involves setting up an educational program.  He suggests alternatives for reconciling university norms with the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964.  An ROTC program at Princeton already implements many such approaches.
• 12 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Despite Campaign Halt, Event Focuses on Political Issues".  Note:  The article discussed the pro-ROTC statements by Senators McCain and Obama at the 11 September presidential candidate forum at Columbia and interviewed Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Senator Joe Biden after the event, who agreed that ROTC should be a choice on campus. “I think that there should be ROTC on campus. No one has to show up and sign up. Just as I defended this University’s right to invite Ahmadinejad, regardless of how bad that judgment may have been, how can you say that there should not be an ROTC group here?"
• 12 September 2008 WNYC Brian Lehrer show "School of War".  Note: The show played the audio clip of Senator Obama's answer on ROTC at the 11 September presidential candidate forum.  Scott Jaschik, the editor of Inside Higher Education, noted Senator Obama's opposition to the "Don't ask, don't tell" law and observed that "if Obama were able to execute all of his plans, the opposition of many on campus to ROTC units might also evaporate".  He added that "some people are arguing that American society would benefit if more military leaders were educated at places like Columbia".  Robert McCaughey, professor of history at Barnard College and a former naval officer responded to Senator's Obama's position on ROTC by saying "I was surprised and pleased; it happens to correspond to my own view, both for the nation's purposes but also for Columbia's; I would hope Columbia would reconsider this".
• 12 September 2008 National Review "Campaign spot" item "Obama, All Talk, No Action on Bringing ROTC Back to Campus" by Jim Geraghty.  Note:  Geraghty noted Senator Obama's pro-ROTC remarks at the 11 September presidential candidate forum and wrote "it would have helped if the senior lecturer/professor had ever said or done something about it while he was teaching at the University of Chicago, which kicked ROTC off campus during the Vietnam War ... The University's student newspaper has opined in favor of bringing back ROTC."
• 12 September 2008 Critical Mass blog item "Serendipity and ROTC" by Erin O'Connor.  Note:  O'Connor argues that "the place to protest DADT, which the majority of us can easily see is misguided and wrong, is not ROTC. It would be a great, great thing to see Columbia decide to re-open the ROTC question, not only out of respect for all kinds of service, not only out of respect for Columbia students' desire to see ROTC return, but also out of respect for students' intelligence and freedom of choice."
• 12 September 2008 Media Matters for America article "Fox's Williams falsely suggested Obama has changed position in now supporting ROTC on campuses".  Note:  The left-of-center media watch group documents that Senator Obama took an approach to ROTC in a 15 January Democratic presidential debate that was similar to the position that he took at the 11 September ServiceNation forum at Columbia University.
• 13 September 2008 Wall Street Journal editorial "Obama and McCain v. Ivy League".  Note:  The Journal described the boos in the audience at the 11 September presidential candidate forum when Senator McCain called for lifting the ban on ROTC at Columbia and the "silence when crowd favorite Mr. Obama (Columbia '83) called the ban "a mistake"".  The editorial asked "if a bipartisan rebuke on ROTC is enough to shame Columbia and the other Ivies into changing their dishonorable act".  See letters on 27 September.
• 13 September 2008 Washington Post editorial "ROTC and the Ivies: The presidential candidates agree that the de facto ban by elite universities should end."  Note:  The Post observes that "the restoration of ROTC at the Ivies might help reconnect two important American subcultures -- elite academia and the military officer corps -- that have grown apart".
• 14 September 2008 BWOG blog item "Student Councils and Groups Meeting to Hold Referendum on ROTC".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, reports that "representatives from the CC, GS, and SEAS student councils, in conjunction with SGB, the College Democrats, CQA, CPU, the Hamilton Society, and the College Republicans, have been meeting since school began to discuss plans for a student referendum on the return of Naval ROTC to campus."
• 15 September 2008 New York Sun article "Columbia Students May Vote on ROTC".  Note:  The article reports that a vote to hold "a student-wide referendum about whether the military program should be allowed ... could come as early as this week."  The article also described the reaction of 7,500 people watching video feed of the 11 September presidential candidate forum at Columbia.  "Mr. McCain was booed by students when he voiced his opposition to the ban, but that when Mr. Obama expressed a similar sentiment, the crowd had a different response.  "Almost everyone's expecting him to say no, because he's on our side, right? So then you heard him say 'yes' and everyone's mouths opened in stunned silence. It was absolutely priceless," Mr. Hirsch said."
• 15 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "CCSC Unveils Student Referendum Process".  Note:  A committee will look into ways to do online surveys of students to gauge approval for matters such as return of ROTC to Columbia.
• 15 September 2008 Columbia Spectator op-ed article "Obama Flip-Flops on ROTC" by Hannah Jones.  Note:  The writer, a Columbia College senior, argued that Senator Obama was wrong to suggest that Columbia students don't have a choice about serving in ROTC because they are free to do ROTC off campus and support ROTC verbally on campus.
• 15 September 2008 National Review article "Duty, Honor, Country… and Columbia: Bringing back the ROTC" by David J. Feith.  Note:  Feith, a senior at Columbia, recalled the hosting of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Columbia in 2007.  "The value of engaging with Ahmadinejad, [Columbia President Lee] Bollinger argued, outweighed the costs of sharing a prestigious podium with a murderer of gays (not to mention American troops). Maybe the experience has led Bollinger, who in 2005 voted to uphold the ROTC ban, to reconsider the costs and benefits of sharing a campus with ROTC cadets and drill instructors."
• 15 September 2008 New Republic column "Obama: Right on ROTC " by Marty Peretz.  Note:  The Editor-In-Chief  wrote that Senator Obama's support for ROTC at the 11 September presidential candidate forum at Columbia "did not surprise me at all. It is an expression of his understanding the essentials of democratic life. That we need a military is axiomatic. That we need a bright and curious military follows from this first principle."  Peretz also wants to know what Senators McCain and Obama think of the "don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 16 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "ESC Views Proposal For ROTC Referendum".  Note:  "A student-referendum protocol that would allow students to vote to express their opinions on controversial issues made its way through the Engineering Student Council Monday night with some resistance."
• 18 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Attempting to Approach Controversial ROTC Referendum, Student Leaders Wonder Who Should Have a Say".  Note:  "The newest push to revisit the ROTC policy was spurred by engineering students who have expressed frustration that the naval ROTC—a route, they say, to recouping college loans—doesn’t operate a program in Manhattan."
• 18 September 2008 Columbia University College Democrats "Statement on NROTC".  Note:  The statement says that NROTC "has no place in our community or on our campus" as long as the "Don't ask, don't tell" law is in place, and brands the law, passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by President Clinton, as unconstitutional.
• 19 September 2008 Christian Science Monitor article "Will Ivy League Embrace R.O.T.C. Again?".  Note:  The article notes that although it is unlikely that many Ivy League graduates would enter ROTC programs, "the impact on the military, and on the East Coast elite that still struggles with military service, would be enormous".
• 22 September 2008 BWOG blog item "ROTC Meetings Opening to All Groups; Senators Pushed Out".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, discusses the process by which student councils are to decide on an ROTC referendum.
• 24 September 2008 BWOG blog item "ROTC Public Forums Announced".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, published the email from Adil Ahmed CC'09, Columbia College Student Council Vice President for Policy, announcing plans for public forums on ROTC.
• 24 September 2008 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "Legislate Slow, Homie" by Adil Ahmed CC'09.  Note:  The Columbia College Student Council Vice President for Policy explains the rationale for a student survey on ROTC before the matter is taken up again by the University Senate: "If the survey shows that most students do not support the Navy ROTC, the senate will not even consider it. If there is overwhelming support, then it will surely take precedence on the senate’s agenda."
• 25 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Student Councils Plan To Hold Forums on NROTC".  Note:  The student councils will host an open meeting on 26 September to plan forums addressing the possible return of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps.  "University Provost Alan Brinkley said that he personally would have no problems with ROTC if it repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But, Brinkley added, the issue may be moot. “It’s very unlikely that ROTC would choose to come back to Columbia because there is just not enough interest in that to justify multiple ROTC units in the city,” he said."  It is not clear whether the contention that DADT is something other than a federal law was made by the Provost or assumed by Spectator.
• 25 September 2008 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed "Why We Should All Care About DADT" by Chuck Griffith.  Note: Griffith makes the human dignity argument for repealing DADT and does not even mention the sexual privacy and unit cohesion arguments that prompt others to think that having gays in certain roles in the military is problematic.
• 25 September 2008 Columbia University Office of the President "Statement Regarding ROTC and the Campus" by President Lee C. Bollinger.  Note: President Bollinger points out that students already have some ROTC opportunities available at other area colleges, and that current military policy is to aggregate ROTC programs so as to achieve proper scale.  He concludes "it is not at all clear whether a change of policy would have any impact on the current practice of having our students travel to one of the other campus ROTC sites, as do virtually all other students at New York area colleges and many others across the nation."
• 25 September 2008 BWOG blog item "PrezBo Speaks On ROTC".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, comments on Columbia President Lee Bollinger's email to the Columbia community about the ROTC issue.  The blog item observes "unfortunately for the NROTC planners, the email also shows that PrezBo has not been paying attention to their efforts. Contrary to Bollinger's claim, there is no Naval ROTC program for Columbia students."  However, this is not correct since President Bollinger did not claim that there is currently a Naval ROTC opportunity for Columbia students; he merely neglected to point out that existing ROTC opportunities are limited to Army and Air Force programs.  Furthermore, making the claim that Bollinger has ignored the Navy part of the issue would require knowledge of all his deliberations, an assertion that is not credible.
• 25 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Bollinger Defends Campus ROTC Ban in Email".  Note:  Spectator quotes from President Bollinger's email to the Columbia community about the ROTC issue, which did not mention Naval ROTC specifically, and noted that "student leaders have said they want to deal specifically with NROTC because, unlike other branches of ROTC, it's not an option for Columbia students."
• 26 September 2008 Columbia spectator article "Pres. Bollinger Weighs In on ROTC Debate".  Note:  Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10 and a University senator for the Engineering Student Council, "said that if [undergraduate] students don’t support the return of NROTC, senators representing them won’t consider it. But he pointed out that graduate students and their senators also have the option of raising the issue to the senate."
• 26 September 2008 BWOG blog item "Exciting New Details About the NROTC Forums".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, reports that Student Councils will be encouraging the pro- and con- sides on the ROTC to organize and self-select a total of six students who would be representing them at the Columbia and Barnard forums slated for late October.
• 26 September 2008 Power Line blog item "Lee Bollinger's Policy".  Note:  The item denounces as sophistry Columbia President Lee Bollinger's reference to the "Don't ask, don't tell" federal law as a "policy of the Defense Department".  It is unclear, however, whether Bollinger was intentionally misleading or just echoing the misleading title of the federal law which refers to itself as "Policy concerning homosexuality in the armed forces".
• 26 September 2008 Letter from American Council of Trustees and Alumni president Ann D. Neal to the trustees of Columbia University calling for the trustees to reconsider Columbia's ban on ROTC.  Similar letters were sent to the governing boards of Harvard, Yale, Brown and Stanford.
• 27 September 2008 Wall Street Journal letters "Allow Freedom for ROTC on Campus".  Note:  In response to the 13 September editorial about ROTC at Columbia, one of the letters, by Columbia alumnus and retired Navy commander Edward A. Cook, calls on Columbia University to "allow at least one ROTC office on campus".
• 27 September 2008 Chronicle of Higher Education column "ROTC and Relativity" by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg CC'59.  Note:  The former president of George Washington University notes the pendulum swing from the 1960s, when students pushed for excluding ROTC at Columbia, to now, when they are pushing for its return.
• 29 September 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Councils Set Details of ROTC Forum".  Note:  The article states "The current discussion revolves around NROTC specifically because it is not available to Columbia students, unlike the other branches of the corps, which operate programs on nearby campuses."  Although there is a Navy ROTC program at SUNY Maritime in the Bronx, it is Navy policy only to allow students from other campuses if their university has a cross-town agreement with the host NROTC program.  There is no such need for cross-town agreements for Columbia students doing Army or Air Force ROTC at nearby colleges.
• 29 September 2008 Columbia spectator article "USenate Plenary Addresses ROTC, Economy, Brinkley".  Note:  President Bollinger said the University’s 2005 decision on ROTC would only be re-examined if students brought the issue to the Senate.
• 29 September 2008 New York Sun article "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Cited In Bollinger's Opposition to ROTC". 
• 30 September 2008 Wall Street Journal column "A Columbia Marine: To Obama: Help!" by William McGurn.  Note:  McGurn profiles Austin Byrd CC'10, who has gone through Marine training.  Byrd says "What Columbia needs is a debate that cuts to the heart of this issue ... whether ROTC is fit to be on our campus."
• 1 October 2008 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Debate May Return to USenate".  Note:  James Applegate, a professor of astronomy who served as co-chair of the task force in 2004-5, said of the new student-led ROTC initiative "This is a new thing for students, and faculty are saying, ‘Hey, we did this yesterday.’"
• 2 October 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Alumni Org Calls For Return Of ROTC".  Note:  The American Council of Trustees and Alumni sent letters to the governing boards of Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Brown and Stanford calling on them to reconsider their bans on ROTC.  "Paul E. Mawn ’63, the chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC and a retired Navy captain, said in an interview yesterday that ACTA “may not understand what the realistic target is” and that the goal should be official recognition" by the Harvard Corporation, "not the opening of a ROTC branch at Harvard.  “The reality is that there are so few students at ROTC anyway, so tomorrow if Harvard begged and pleaded the Pentagon to bring it back on campus, they wouldn’t,” Mawn said. “What has evolved around the country is core sites like MIT that service several different schools. MIT has the critical mass and good facilities and classrooms for the courses and drilling and other activities. There is no critical mass at Harvard.”".  Mawn called upon Harvard to pay the overhead fee for Harvard students taking ROTC courses at MIT, currently paid by the alumni-funded "Friends of Harvard ROTC Trust".
• 4 October 2008 Eric's Learning Curve blog item "Response to Columbia President Bollinger's e-mail on ROTC " by Eric Chen.  Note:  One of the leaders of the 2002-2005 ROTC advocacy movement at Columbia University writes between the lines of Columbia President Bollinger's 25 September email on ROTC.
• 12 October Barnard Bulletin opinion article "The ROTC Debate" by Sigourney LaBarre.  Note:  LaBarre quotes various arguments on the ROTC issue, mostly against ROTC, including the contention by Rahel Aima, CC ’10 and leader of Students for a Democratic Society, that ROTC should be opposed "not only because of the military’s discriminatory policy against homosexuals, but also because of its discrimination against all minorities". 
• 17 October 2008 When and Why ROTC Should Return to Columbia --- Position and Discussion Paper by Allan Silver, Professor of Sociology, Columbia University.  Note: Professor Silver presents a detailed history of the ROTC issue and why Columbia should re-engage with ROTC.
• 20 October 2008 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "A Bias-Free Campus?" by Learned Foote CC'11.  Note:  Foote, the President of the Columbia College Class of 2011 and treasurer of the Columbia Queer Alliance, argues for asking the military for an ROTC program at Columbia despite the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  "We cannot address discrimination by distancing ourselves from the military. We cannot ignore Columbia’s potential to create a liberalizing influence from the bottom up."
• 20 October 2008 BWOG blog item "New Dates for ROTC Survey".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, publishes the Student Government Association email announcing that the ROTC referendums will be conducted in the week of 17 November, and the forums will be in the week of 10 November.
• 23 October 2008 Aries L. blog post on ROTC.  Note:  The blogger, an architecture student at Columbia, expresses skepticism that the Navy would open an ROTC program at Columbia, and an ROTC advocate makes the case for ROTC at Columbia using statistics, analysis and history to detail the current and likely interest in ROTC from Columbia students.
• 24 October 2008 Columbia Spectator column "On ROTC, Who Does Columbia Speak For?" by Armin Rosen.  Note:  Rosen compares Columbia's hosting of a speech by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to its unwillingness to host an ROTC program.
• 28 October 2008 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "Palling Around with Traitors, or Those Who Feel Like Them" by Noah Baron '11.  Note:  Baron writes that as a gay student he'd feel unwelcome with ROTC on campus, fearing that "return of the NROTC will establish, for the first time in a long time, an entire department at this institution in which an entire section of our student body cannot participate".
• 28 October 2008 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "Making the Case for the Military" by Peter Meijer '10.  Note:  Meijer writes "“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is an atrocious policy, but it is largely a product of the very disconnect between the armed forces and general society that the administration’s ROTC ban fosters.... Supporting ROTC is not a vote for the military and its policies. It is a vote to bring knowledge of our fighting forces to campus, for the benefit of both the university and the armed forces."
• 6 November 2008 BWOG blog item "First Signs of ROTC Debate Appear".  Note:  The blog of The Blue and White, Columbia's undergraduate magazine, shows a poster "from the anti-ROTC coalition (so far including the Dems, Lucha, CQA, EAAH, and Proud Colors)."
• 7 November 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed "Obama Needs a Strong Foreign Policy" by Will Marshall.  Note:  The president of the Progressive Policy Institute gives advice to the president-elect: "At a Sept. 11 summit on national service at Columbia University, Mr. Obama chided his alma mater for barring ROTC from campus during the Vietnam War. As America's next commander in chief, Mr. Obama should take that message to other elite universities, and to places like the Marine Recruiting office in Berkeley, Calif., whose mayor, Tom Bates, earlier this year called the Marines an "uninvited and unwelcome guest."  Such gestures would go a long way toward allaying suspicions that the Democratic Party harbors anti-military attitudes."
• 10 November 2008 Questions and Answers About NROTC by Columbia Students for NROTC.  Note: Columbia students outline the case for Naval ROTC at Columbia in advance of the student survey scheduled for 24 November.
• 11 November 2008 Columbia Spectator editorial "From Murky Talks to Dialogue".  Note:  Spectator discusses the planning of the survey on NROTC.
• 11 November 2008 Columbia Spectator Commentariat blog item "Today in ROTC-Related News: What Were They Thinking?" by Armin Rosen '11.  Note:  Rosen sees the lopsided anti-ROTC event planned for the evening of Veterans' Day as evidence that "these groups don’t really want dialogue".
• 11 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Brace for Impact! What's Ahead for the NROTC Debate".  Note:  The blog shows the "rather interesting poster" used to advertize for an anti-ROTC event and links to the website of Columbia Students for NROTC.
• 12 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Anti-NROTC Groups Raise Their "Voices"".  Note:  Professor David Eisenbach, one of the anti-ROTC panelists, agreed in response to a question that "Don't ask, don't tell" is a federal law and it is "now it is up to the politicians to end it".
• 12 November 2008 Columbia Spectator article "NROTC Forum Previews Survey Opinion".  Note:  A coalition of anti-ROTC groups held a panel discussion with a question and answer period.  The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network pulled out of the event at the last minute.  The article notes that "Some students who had graduated from the ROTC program also commented and asked questions, emphasizing their disapproval of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and challenging the panelists on some of their assertions."
• 14 November 2008 Columbia Spectator op-ed "Why ROTC Should Return to Columbia" by Prof. Allan Silver.  Note:  Silver, who opposed ROTC when it was de-certified in the late 1960s, writes that "The conspicuous absence from military service of those headed for leading positions in society is a civic scandal... When military service is not broadly shared, military and civilian society risk an unhealthy mutual isolation".  He proposes that Congress reform the "Don't ask, don't tell" law and reconsider some provisions of the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964, and the military increase the number of urban ROTC programs.  "The government and the military must decide whether to invest in a diverse, regionally balanced, educationally qualified military leadership. Columbia must decide if it is prepared to include ROTC among its responsibilities... Whether you support ROTC now or after DADT’s reform, vote “yes” in the upcoming survey. Only voting “yes” makes it clear that in principle you want Columbia to make that contribution".
• 17 November 2008 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Survey to Open Nov. 24".  Note:  The corrected version of the article gives the wording of the ROTC question as “Would you support bringing a Naval ROTC program to Columbia's campus at this time?”.  The article also repeats the common error of referring to "military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy", while in fact DADT is required by federal law.
• 18 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Anti-NROTC Coalition Holds Meeting with Councils, Dems Put Up New Posters; UPDATE: Pro-NROTC Responds".  Note:  An anti-ROTC poster is shown claiming that "If we were to welcome ROTC onto our campus, the 19% of our population who identify as LGBTQ would be legally barred from taking any ROTC-specific courses" and the pro-ROTC side countered by demonstrating that this is not the case at MIT.  An anonymous poster in the comments section suggests that pro-ROTC people "take all the energy you're investing here in trying to get the university to bend over backwards to accommodate ridiculous policy like DADT and instead combine forces with all the other pro-ROTC groups at other campuses and put pressure on congress to fix DADT."  That is in fact being done; details of such efforts over the past several years may emerge at the 19 November forum.
• 18 November 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Councils to Host One Discussion Forum, Not Two, on NROTC".  Note:  The forum will be on 19 November at 7 PM.  The survey will be open for at least a week after 24 November, until 55% or more of students respond.  "The group Columbia Students for NROTC held its own event on College Walk yesterday, offering passersby a script to call and petition congress members to repeal DADT. Justin Johnson, SIPA ’10, is a member of the group, and said despite opposing DADT, he would vote to bring back NROTC because it would draw more open-minded and affluent students to the military and because the government, not the military, is to blame for DADT."
• 19 November 2008 Columbia Spectator column "Yes on NROTC" by Lauren Salz BC'11.  Note:  Salz, director of the College Republicans, writes "If the military is not what we want it to be, then we must work within the system to change it. To get the best and the brightest into the military, we must allow the military to train officer candidates on our campus."
• 19 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Tonight's NROTC Forum - Now With a Format!".  Note:  The event will have "3 questions about the impact on student life, the role of Columbia's NROTC history, and the role of DADT in the debate" as well as 30 minutes of audience questions.
• 20 November 2008 BWOG blog item "NROTC Forum: Prepare for the Survey".  Note:  The anti-ROTC side based its case heavily on the "Don't ask, don't tell" law and the 2 of the 4 people speaking for the pro-ROTC side were gay veterans who argued that both the military and Columbia need the diversity of thought that would result from an ROTC program.  Rahel Aima CC'10 of Students for a Democratic Society and the Columbia Coalition Against the War "compared the enforced adherence to military standards in the ROTC to forcing everyone who reads the Symposium to engage in pedophilia".
• 20 November 2008 Columbia Spectator article "In Anticipation of Campus Survey, Panelists Debate DADT Policy".  Note:  "Pro-NROTC students called for the reinstatement of NROTC on Columbia’s campus, a move they believed would change ... discriminatory practices from the bottom up. Students against NROTC’s return argued that keeping the program off campus would be a symbolic protest against biased practices." 
• 20 November 2008 Columbia Spectator editorial "The Right Kind of Conversation".  Note:  Spectator wrote that the 19 November NROTC forum "allowed for a structured conversation to take place and should be used as an example for future discussions of contentious campus issues".
• 20 November 2008 Columbia Spectator ad "Faculty in Support of ROTC".  Note:  The text is "We broadly support the return of ROTC to Columbia University -- some of us unconditionally, others if legislation prohibiting military service by open homosexuals is reformed, and/or provision made for faculty control of appointments, curriculum and credit.  We all believe, in principle, that an ROTC program at Columbia is an appropriate educational responsibility of the university."
• 20 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Prof Club Backs NROTC".  Note:  "Some heavy (and not-so-heavy) hitting faculty came out in the Spec today endorsing NROTC's presence on campus. Bwog is inquiring into the genesis of the list--mostly male--and will update as information becomes available."  Others are welcome to sign the ad too.  See follow-up item on 21 November.
• 21 November 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Vets, Cadets Weigh in on NROTC Debate".  Note:  The article says that "one group has largely remained silent: Columbia students who participate in ROTC programs", while in fact one of the cadets, Kelley Victor-Gasper CC '09 was one of the panelists at the 19 November forum and three other current military students have been very involved in the current ROTC effort and had volunteered to be panelists if needed.  The article also quotes once of these students, Army ROTC cadet John McClelland as saying that "ROTC is not inconvenient to us" due to the availability of Army ROTC in the Bronx.  This underscores the current focus on providing an option for students wishing to do Navy ROTC, for which the only NYC program is both off-limits to Columbia students and also much farther away than the Army program at Fordham.
• 21 November 2008 BWOG blog item "The Origin of the NROTC Professor Statement of Support".  Note:  In response to a previous BWOG item, Sociology professor Allan Silver writes to explain the origin of the faculty pro-ROTC ad.  "There is no mystery, nothing is concealed, all is transparent."
• 23 November 2008 Petitions Online "Columbia Faculty Opposing ROTC".  Note:  An online petition takes an anti-ROTC position that appears to go far beyond opposition to the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  It reads "We, the undersigned, represent a diversity of disciplines, personal experiences, and political viewpoints. However, as faculty members responsible for creating a welcoming community for all, committed to eternal questioning and the vital interplay of ideas, we are united in our opposition to the institution of an ROTC program on the Columbia campus."  In contrast, an ad to appear in the Columbia Spectator on 24 November takes a position focused on DADT.  Of the first 13 signers of the petition that is anti-ROTC per se, 10 signed the anti-DADT petition as well.
• 23 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Professors Sign Petition Against NROTC on Campus".  Note:  The ad to appear in the Columbia Spectator on 24 November appeals against moving forward on ROTC on the basis of president-elect Obama's plans to reform the "Don't ask, don't tell" law:  The ad reads "In contrast to those who have expressed support for ROTC based on hypothetical conditions, we recognize that any position on ROTC must be grounded in the present. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is official policy and exceptions cannot be negotiated".  See also an online petition that opposes ROTC per se, with no explicit mention of DADT.  Of the 34 signers of the anti-DADT petition, 10 also signed the petition that is anti-ROTC per se.
• 24 November 2008 BWOG blog item "ROTC Survey In Your Inbox Now".  Note:  After many different reports, we now have the wording of the Columbia College version as "Do you support bringing a Naval ROTC program to Columbia's campus?"
• 24 November 2008 College on the Record blog item "Vote No on Columbia's ROTC Survey".  Note:  "almamater" dismisses the right of students to choose to do ROTC by writing "if ROTC was so important, students should have factored it into their college decision... The same goes for underprivileged students.... Remember, guys, this is Columbia, aka the University of Havana North. This is a school where we don’t observe Columbus Day of out respect for the struggles of Native Americans, even though our school is named after Columbus."
• 25 November 2008 Associated Press article "Survey polls Columbia students on support for ROTC".  Note:  The article quotes some as defending the right to have a total campus ban on any activity that discriminates against gays, and others as defending the right to freedom of choice to enroll in an ROTC program.
• 25 November 2008 Response to ROTC Posters by Columbia Students for NROTC.  Note:  Photos of posters by the coalition opposing return of ROTC to Columbia are accompanied by an analysis of the arguments made in the posters.
• 25 November 2008 Fox News article "Columbia University to Vote on Allowing Military Training Program on Campus".  Note:  The article refers to a group called "Columbia Advocates for ROTC", presumably meaning "Columbia Students for NROTC".  The article also notes that "Columbia has been working with the Defense Department" on the issue but no further details were given.  A video version is here, adding more errors such as the composition of the University Senate and the process by which ROTC left campus 4 decades ago.
• 25 November 2008 BWOG blog item "Fox News Talks About You Talking About ROTC". 
• 25 November 2008 Fox News video "Discrimination Debate".  Note:  The video segment discusses the ROTC issue at Columbia and the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  One of the students interviewed is Lauren Salz (whose name was mis-spelled).  Also included is a video tape of then senator Obama expressing his support for ROTC at Columbia.
• 25 November 2008 Columbia Spectator Commentariat blog item "Faculty Hypocrites Against ROTC" by Armin Rosen.  Note:  Rosen discusses the Faculty anti-ROTC ad that opposes moving forward on "hypothetical conditions" such the Democratic party implementing the commitment in its 2008 platform to "repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”".  He illustrates how 4 of the signers have written in detail about hypothetical conditions in other situations.
• 26 November 2008 New York Post article "Hope for Columbia's ROTC".  Note: The article mentions scholarships as an argument for ROTC. 
• 29 November 2008 Parade Magazine article "The Fight For ROTC".  The article notes that "Although more than 600 colleges in the U.S. allow ROTC programs on campus, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Tufts, Stanford, and the University of Chicago have maintained the bans they began in protest of the Vietnam War...   “The seven schools who exclude ROTC produce many of our leaders, yet their students have the least contact with the military,” says Sean Wilkes (Columbia University ‘06), chair of Advocates for Columbia ROTC."
• 30 November 2008 New York Times article "A High Achiever Poised to Scale New Heights".  Note: In an article about Eric Holder, expected to be nominated as US attorney general, his student days at Columbia are described.  "When he arrived at Columbia in 1969 as a boyish-looking freshman, he was recruited by upperclassmen to help take over the R.O.T.C. office. Armed with pillowcases and sheets, he joined several dozen students and christened the office as a student center named for Malcolm X."
• 30 November 2008 Fox News video "NROTC and Columbia U".  Note:  Avi Edelman of Columbia's College Democrats and Learned Foote of Columbia Students for NROTC debate the return of Naval ROTC to Columbia.  Foote stressed that the way to get rid of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law is through Congress or the courts.  When asked if he would give up his opposition to ROTC if students vote to bring it back, Edelman said "I won't give up my personal opposition".
• December 2008 Columbia Political Review article "Between the Trenches: NROTC, Queer Identity, and the Soul of a University" by Bryan Lowder.  Note:  "NROTC itself isn’t the real issue—it’s just the symbol of a deeper conflict. Past all the rhetoric, the real fight is over the ideological soul of the University.  In a sense, the anti-ROTC side envisions an institution that stands as a model to the rest of society. Free from prejudice and discrimination, the school should be a so-called “safe space,” where academics work to improve the world without interference from governments. The creation of such a space, in their view, challenges societal injustice by refusing to participate in its propagation.  The pro-ROTC side has a more hands-on perspective. It imagines the University as inexorably linked to the nation-state (including the military), with an essential duty to engage directly with that construct."
• 2 December 2008 BWOG (Columbia) blog item "NROTC Survey Results for CC, SEAS, GS: NROTC Loses By 39 Votes".  Note:  It is not clear from the pooled results whether one or two of the three schools voted in favor of NROTC.  Results from Barnard were not yet reported, but were expected to favor ROTC less than other schools.
• 2 December 2008 Columbia spectator article "Students Roughly Split on NROTC Return".  Note:  The article notes that the survey was fought primarily over the issue of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  The 2008 Democratic Platform includes the following language: "We support the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the implementation of policies to allow qualified men and women to serve openly regardless of sexual orientation" so support may change as the Democrats get a chance to implement their platform.
• 2 December 2008 Columbia Spectator Commentariat blog item "Was the NROTC vote “fair?”" by Armin Rosen.  Note:  Rosen quotes a report that 4905 votes were recorded, including one ID for which 276 votes were recorded, and that after eliminating duplicates, 2971 votes were counted. If all this represents is elimination of non-final multiple votes using one ID, the tally implemented the procedure as announced.  The 276 votes using one ID may be from the posting of the voting URL for one person on BWOG (soon removed). 
• 2 December 2008 BWOG blog item "GSSC President Calls NROTC Survey "Meaningless"".  Note:  BWOG quotes the full email to the College of General Studies student body from Student Council President Brody Berg expressing concerns about the NROTC survey vote.  One of the comments raises the prospects that "someone apparently used a "scattershot" approach - submitting the form with random identifiers in the hopes of landing upon a valid identifier."  Judging from the length of the alphanumeric password apparently need to make a vote with a particular ID number valid it seems that a well-designed system would not be vulnerable to such hacking.
• 2 December 2008 BWOG blog item "BC's NROTC Results".  Note:  Barnard students voted 736 to 453 against NROTC.
• 2 December 2008 Columbia Spectator column "Educate Yourself, Student Government" by Adil Ahmed.  Note:  Ahmed argues that the the student government leaders should have gotten more involved in the details of discussions about issues such as NROTC at Columbia.
• 2 December 2008 Columbia Spectator Commentariat blog item "One Last, Mindboggling ROTC Survey Screwup: Councils Failed to Divide Votes by School" by Noah Baron.  Note:  Baron characterizes the ROTC survey as "effectively pointless" due to the failure to report vote tallies separately for Columbia's three undergraduate schools.
• 3 December 2008 Columbia Spectator article "Next Step Unclear After Split Survey Results".  Note:  University Senator Rajat Roy, SEAS ’10 said that because Columbia’s three undergraduate schools were lumped together in the poll, it will be difficult for senators to determine how to vote. “They didn’t divide up the vote by school, which was surprising, since that was first thing we [senators] told them to do,” Roy said.
• 3 December 2008 BWOG blog item "Why Did ROTC Get 65% Student Support in 2003 and Only 49% in 2008?"  Note:  The item mentions three hypotheses: less favorable attitude towards the military, increased LGBT presence, and a difference in the university and national political climate. 
• 4 December 2008 Columbia Spectator column "ROTC: Wrong in 1968 and Wrong Today" by Andrew Lyubarsky CC '09.  Note:  Lyubarsky  writes that "All the respectable voices of the liberal establishment here, from University President Lee Bollinger to Professor David Eisenbach, have expressed that they would bring ROTC back with open arms once DADT is reversed."  Lyubarsky disagrees, citing the military as "an institution which invades sovereign nations, bombs cities with white phosphorus, and tortures detainees in secret prisons".  He does not discuss the question of whether the military would be a better institution if it had more Columbia graduates.
• 4 December 2008 Eric's Learning Curve blog post "80% of Columbia students did not vote against NROTC" by Eric Chen.  Note:  One of the leaders of the 2002-2005 ROTC advocacy movement at Columbia University ponders the state of mind of the 57% of Columbia students who didn't vote in the recent NROTC survey, and wonders how much of this apathy was due to lackluster efforts of the student councils to present the issues.
• 5 December 2008 Human Events column "Even Obama Can't Get Columbia University To Listen" by Flagg Youngblood.  Note:  Austin Byrd, vice-president of the Hamilton Society, described how their "get out the vote" effort on the final day of the ROTC survey was short circuited by the voting being ended earlier than they had expected.  The survey email said "The survey will be open until December 1, 2008", which was interpreted by those running the vote as being 9 AM on that date.
• 7 December 2008 BWOG blog item "NROTC Ends Not With a Bang, But a Whimper".  Note:  "Council and Senate sources confirm to Bwog that NROTC will not even be presented to the Senate. Whether individual school results will be released for CC, SEAS, and GS is still unknown."
• 7 December 2008 BWOG blog item "Learned Foote Argues for ROTC in the WSJ".  Note:  In the comments, some raised the question of what the article could achieve by appearing after the ROTC vote, and others pointed out that there are votes coming up in Congress on the "Don't ask, don't tell" law, which would affect future consideration of ROTC at Columbia.
• 7 December 2008 New York Magazine item "Ivy Leaguers in the Foxholes: ROTC back at Columbia? "  Note:  The item looks ahead to what may happen if the "Don't ask, don't tell" law is repealed.
• 8 December 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed "Why Columbia Should Welcome ROTC: Bad policy on gays is not a good reason for a ban" by Learned Foote.  Note:  One of the leaders of Columbia Students for NROTC explains why, despite the "Don't ask, don't tell" law , he and other gay students think it is crucial for top universities to engage actively with the military and for their ROTC graduates be a "liberalizing influence from the bottom up".  "Let us do our duty as Americans. Let us imagine a military that represents our best values."
• 8 December 2008 Columbia Spectator Commentariat blog item "Our Fraudulent ROTC Vote" by Armin Rosen.  Note:  Judging by the two voting URLs examined by Advocates for ROTC, the one that appeared transiently in BWOG and another reportedly sent around by College Democrats, the query string of the URL contained two identifiers: a three or 4 digit ID number, and a 24 character alphanumeric string.  Presumably the alphanumeric string was a password that needed to match that assigned for the ID number in order for a vote to count.  Two types of invalid votes are predictable using such a system:  people repeatedly using the valid ID/password combinations that were circulated, and people attempting to vote for another ID number without knowing the correct password.  Presumably both types of improper voting would be detected.  One could argue whether the first or last or no vote should be counted for the disclosed ID/password combinations, but clearly no vote should be counted for the bogus ID/password combinations. 
• 8 December 2008 Solomonia blog item "Bringing ROTC Back to the Columbia Campus".  Note:  "A Columbia student has exactly the formula for getting homosexuals accepted by straight society and moving policies like 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' into obsolescence -- forget the 'Gay Pride' freak shows, and demonstrate that gays are simply another part of a functioning society".
• 8 December 2008 Washington Post groups discussion "The ROTC on Campus".  Note:  One of the comments thinks Learned Foote's argument for ROTC "because it rests, not on insulting or discounting the students opposition, but on the importance of relationship even when there is disagreement. Telling the students that they are ungrateful serves no purpose--it may not be true, it's alienating and divisive, and it's hardly likely to convince anyone of the rightness of your position. The "best argument" is the one that persuades, not the one that makes you feel morally righteous."
• 11 December 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed "Honored Roles: How Colleges Remember Their Veterans" by Bari Weiss.  Note:  Weiss reflects on the memorial being dedicated the next day to Columbia University's war dead and recounts how Princeton honors its war dead: "500 bronze stars, each engraved with the name of a student who died, dot the school's oldest buildings... With few exceptions, the stars are located outside the window of the dorm room where the student once lived".
• 11 December 2008 BWOG blog item "Nice to Know: ROTC Results Broken Down by School".  Note:  "Combined with Barnard's results, this means that two schools voted for, and two schools against, with the depth of opposition in Barnard and the size of the CC vote making the difference."
• 12 December 2008 Dedication Speech for the Columbia War Memorial by LTC Eliot Goldman CC '79, USAR.  Note: Goldman concluded his remarks by speaking about ROTC.  "Not many schools have had an alumnus in the Oval Office. With a Columbia College graduate about to be Commander In Chief, we should see to it that President-elect Obama does not command a military that lacks Columbia graduates.  Three months ago, 100 yards from here, our president elect spoke of a recommitment to public service by the youth of America. Today we pay homage to Columbia men who have exemplified commitment to public service by making the ultimate sacrifice to the best country on earth. I leave you men and women of Columbia with the thought that the best way to honor those we pay tribute to with this memorial is to provide a new generation of Columbia men and women with the opportunity to also serve in our military. I challenge Columbia to reestablish ROTC so that this memorial will not represent a commitment of bygone days, but a commitment to the future of Columbia and our great nation. The President Obama Class of ‘83 ROTC Unit should be announced in 2009, and should stand up its first company shortly after that."
• 12 December 2008 BWOG blog item "Columbia Unveils War Memorial in Butler".  Note:  The memorial also has an online counterpart on Columbia's website.
• 15 December 2008 Eric's Learning Curve blog post "ROTC and Columbia University's discrimination policy" by Eric Chen.  Note:  One of the leaders of the 2002-2005 ROTC advocacy movement at Columbia University questions the conventional wisdom that the "Don't ask, don't tell" law regulating the military conflicts with Columbia's antidiscrimination policy.  Columbia's  policy states that "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination and harassment...Columbia University does not discriminate against any person in the administration of its educational policies... and other University-administered programs".  Since DADT is not unlawful; indeed it is the law, and since it is not one of Columbia's "educational policies", it is not clear that there is an actual conflict here.
• 17 December 2008 Time Magazine article "Why the Ivy League is Rethinking ROTC".  Note:  "ROTC supporters point to the debate at Columbia and its focus on "don't ask, don't tell" as a sign that students no longer have strong objections to the military more generally — and therefore would be receptive to inviting the program back if the policy were repealed, something more than 100 retired generals and admirals called for in November...  Allan Silver, a Columbia sociology professor who supports the return of ROTC despite what he calls its "abhorrent" policy on gays, [notes that] having future soldiers live side by side with students who sometimes criticize them would encourage critical thinking and thereby strengthen the military."

2009:

• 9 January 2009 National Association of Scholars conference talk The Changing Landscape of American Higher Education -- Panel on the Military and Academe by Prof. Allan Silver.  Note:  Silver, a sociology professor at Columbia, suggests that the Obama administration "should accord priority explicitly to restoring ROTC to private institutions of higher learning" and suggests changes for the new administration to make to overcome this civilian-military divide.
• 14 January 2009 Y Files blog item "NAS conference notes 3: The academy, the military, and gays" by Cathy Young.  Note:  Young describes the "fascinating talk by Alan Silver" at the National Association of Scholars conference, a question from the audience about whether "the fact that the career military is now strongly Southern and overwhelmingly politically conservative ... should create a concern about "standing armies" as understood by the Founders".  She observed that "It seems to me that, in this sense, the absence of ROTC from campus should be more of a concern to the liberals but to conservatives."
• Winter "2008" (actually March 2009) The Current article "Gunning for Citizenship" by Learned Foote.  Note:  One of the leaders of the gay rights movement at Columbia gives examples of how Japanese Americans and African–Americans, in the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, decided to "forget our special grievances and close our ranks" in time of war.  Foote urges gays to do the same and be supportive of ROTC, despite the view of ROTC opponents that "No one has to JOIN a discriminatory organization to fight discrimination".  Foote also noted that "An estimated 65,000 gays and lesbians currently serve in the armed forces. By excluding the military at Columbia and other elite universities, we exclude them as well. This fact became cruelly apparent during a campus panel on ROTC, as two gay students opposed to ROTC argued against the pleas of two gay veterans."
• 26 March 2009 Columbia Spectator magazine "the eye" article "Corps Curriculum: from the battlefield to the classroom" by John McClelland.  Note:  An ROTC student and former special operations combat medic writes about the transition from the military to Columbia, and how he told his commander that to him the army was "applied philosophy".
• 12 April 2009 New York Post article "War vets ready for enroll call: Surge in GI bill boosts City Colleges".  Note:  Under the new GI bill " Columbia University predicts "the biggest presence of vets on campus since Vietnam and in some respects since World War II," according to Curtis Rodgers, dean of the School of General Studies... "We had 19 veterans start in the fall class last year," said Rodgers. "I could see 40 or 50 more next year.""
• 13 April 2009 Military.com item "Ivy League Tuition Waived".  Note: "Columbia University School of General Studies, founded in 1947 in response to military veterans returning from World War II, will provide eligible student-veterans with a 50 percent tuition waiver beginning August 1 through the Yellow Ribbon GI Education Enhancement Program, part of the post-9/11 GI Bill. After the matching grant is provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the entire cost of education is expected to be covered."
• 6 May 2009 Columbia Law School "Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Law Analyzed at Panel Co-Hosted by Columbia Organizations".  Note:  "The event was co-sponsored by the Solomon Amelioration Committee, Columbia Outlaws, and the Law School’s Military Association...  to balance the fact that the military recruits at the Law School, despite the discriminatory policy toward gays and lesbians."   
• 15 May 2009 Chronicle of higher Education article "ROTC and the Future of Liberal Education" and sidebar "Repairing the Breach Between Academe and the Military" by Donald A. Downs.  Note:  Downs, a professor of political science, law, and journalism at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, argues that knowledge of the military is crucial in the education of nonmilitary students and the subsequent ability of these students to make decisions relating to the military.
• 5 June 2009 Letter from Gen. David H. Petraeus to the Columbia class of 1959.  Note:  At the 50th reunion of the Columbia College class of 1959, a panel was held to discuss the prospects of reconciling Columbia and the ROTC.  General Petraeus sent the class a note congratulating them on their efforts to raise interest in the subject.
• 6 June 2009 Columbia Class of 1959 Reunion Panel on ROTC "Columbia and the ROTC: Prospects for Reconciliation".  Note:  Presentations by Norman Bernstein, Ted Graske, Frank Wilson and Ben Huberman outlined the case for ROTC and the prospects for an atmosphere at Columbia more supportive of ROTC.
• September/October 2009 Columbia College Today article "Meet the New Dean".  Note:  Incoming Columbia College dean Michele Moody-Adams, when listing her achievements as vice provost for undergraduate education at Cornell, cited helping ROTC students feel part of the community, and stressed the value of the ROTC students being "exposed to a diversity of opinions in the community". 
• 11 September 2009 Columbia Spectator article "Columbians celebrate new GI Bill".  Note:  The event marked Columbia's leadership in its strong participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program for paying tuition for veterans.

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