Subject: |
Re: Concerns about ROTC |
Date: |
Monday, May 02, 2005 4:47 PM |
From: |
Michael Segal |
To: |
M Foss; Scott Stewart |
Cc: |
Sean Wilkes; Eric Chen; Prof. Allan Silver |
Michael:
Scott Stewart may have his own perspective on this, but having brought up
the disability issue in an article (
https://advocatesforrotc.org/columbia/dadt_segal.html)
and having been excluded from the military because of my medical disability
let me explain my reasoning.
New York City's antidiscrimination laws (
http://www.nyc.gov/html/cchr/pdf/ch1.pdf)
lump discrimination by disability and discrimination by sexual
orientation together, frequently mentioning both in the same sentence.
There is an obvious relation in that both are often used to bar someone from
employment, and the NYC rules ban such discrimination in the civilian
context. The military context is different, and both I and an openly gay
person would be barred from the military even though there is no reason
whatsoever from barring us from jobs in civilian life. Furthermore, one of
the two reasons used to bar gays from the military is completely
indefensible and I believe we can get it overturned, even though President
Clinton failed to do so when he had a Democratic Senate and a Democratic
House of Representatives. It may be possible to achieve a complete
overturning of DADT, as you appear to be advocating, but I can assure you
that I would be considered a political wizard if I could bring about even a
partial overturning of DADT. Furthermore I think history shows that the
best way to achieve such a complete goal is to begin with incremental
progress such as the steps I suggest in my article.
My personal view is that I would have no objection to serving with gays in
the military, but my views are somewhat moot since I myself was barred from
the military. I found the experiences of the gay former servicemembers who
spoke at the 2003 Hofstra DADT conference to be moving, but I was also moved
by an associate of mine who told me in 1993 of his leaving the military
after being sexually assaulted in the barracks. There are difficult issues
here and you will find that the best way to make progress is in an
incremental way that recognizes the concerns of both sides and recognizes
the difficulties of getting Congress to reopen an issue on which President
Clinton expended a huge amount of political capital without getting much in
return.
You ask for documentation of what ROTC advocates have done to bring about
changes in DADT. Most ROTC advocates are focused on the ROTC issue per se
and their interactions with government have tended to be on the issue of
ROTC itself. However, as someone who spoke at the
2003 Hofstra DADT
conference I've been more willing to take on this issue more than most. As
documented in the emails received by the ROTC Task Force I have urged
changes in the law:
The next day I took the opportunity to suggest to the Congressional
leadership involved in the ROTC issue that I have been unable to find
any rationale for excluding gay lawyers from the military, and I
stated my impression that "DADT was applied to lawyers as part of the
haste created by law written during political fiasco" and urged
legislation to remedy this. I got two prompt and courteous replies from
senior aides with offers to help publicize the views I expressed.
Although the TV appearance arranged by a Congressional committee didn't come
to pass because the
ROTC segment got cancelled, I think they were sincere in respecting my views
about advancing the right of gays to serve in the military. In addition,
when asked by Congress last year what to do about the ROTC issue I
recommended a combination of correcting ambiguous language in the law and
liberalization of DADT. Also, my recent article on DADT was also provided
to the Congressional leadership. Although my views on the subject may
convey more than the usual weight because I have no stake in the DADT issue
per se and because I am proposing a way to improve upon one of the worst
political fiascos in the past few decades, I recognize that Congress will
not be moved by the views of me alone. What I am trying to propose is an
approach that the Columbia community can take to demonstrate a patriotic
will for national service and use this moral high ground to propose
incremental DADT changes that Congress would actually pass.
I'd rather get going with incremental progress rather than engage in
brinkmanship for revolutionary change, particularly when the revolutionary
change approach failed so spectacularly in 1993 in a governmental
environment more sympathetic to gay rights. Reasonable people may disagree
on this strategy, but I think it is fair that we all recognize that there is
more than one reasonable and caring approach to this problem. Also, as one
who has done his best to convince pro-ROTC alumni not to cut off money to
the university because of lack of ROTC, I'd make the same argument to
anti-DADT alumni not to turn the university into an organization to be
boycotted if it does not fit your views in each of many dimensions.
On one technical issue, the Task Force has called for measures such as those
at MIT or Hofstra to deal with issues of financial aid being unavailable to
gays or financial hardship to an ROTC student discovering homosexuality
while in college and losing their stipend. I believe there was no dissent
on this issue and it would be part of the package.
Michael Segal MD'83 PhD'82
[Editor's note: Coincidently, the next day (Tuesday)
Dr. Segal heard from the TV program that was canceled and as of Wednesday it
appears that a segment will be done soon and one of the other participants in
this discussion may appear.]