Cornell ROTC Coverage

• 28 September 1973 Harvard Crimson article "A Survey of ROTC's Status in the Ivies".
• 29 April 1989 Harvard Crimson article "Other Campuses".  Note:  A summary of the status of ROTC at several elite universities.
• 16 September 2002 Cornell Daily sun article "Spotlight On: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'"
• 7 April 2003 Cornell Daily Sun article "ROTC Confronts The War on Iraq: Cadets relate experiences".  Comment:  A cadet at one of the four Ivy League colleges with campus-based ROTC describes student attitudes.
• 12 April 2003 Ithaca Journal article "ROTC trains at Cornell".
• 23 November 2004 Ithaca Journal article "On the Iraq war and Cornell's ROTC program".  Note:  Applications to the ROTC programs have remained strong despite the war in
• 1 December 2004 Cornell Daily Sun editorial "Solomon's Revenge".  Note:  The editors ponder the implications of FAIR vs. Rumsfeld
• 5 April 2005 FrontPage column "The Campus Left's War on ROTC" by Jamie Weinstein.  Note:  The author is uncomfortable with the "Don't ask, don't tell" law but notes "There are reasons why men and women do not share barracks today, and it is the same reason -- or at least a major part of the reason -- for the reluctance to allow gays into the service. "  He goes on to call for modification of "Don't ask don't tell" to exclude soldiers for which
• 20 April 2005 Cornell Daily Sun column "DADT: Facing Facts and Summing Up" by Jamie Weinstein.  Note:  The author asks whether it would have been right to exclude the US military
• 8 March 2006 Cornell Daily Sun article "ROTC ".
• 14 March 2007 Cornell Daily Sun column "Orgies, Adultery and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" by Bill McMorris.  Note: McMorris argues that homosexuality is but one of many areas in which the tolerance of the university and the military are, and should be different.  "In July 1998, 10 United States naval personnel, seven male and three female, participated in an orgy in a Hong Kong hotel room. Every sailor, regardless of their sexual orientation, was charged, indicted and found guilty of “adultery, sodomy and fraternization.” No one had any problem with "  
• 14 February 2008 Cornell Daily Sun column "'Dont Ask, Don't Tell' Hurts ROTC, Too" by Gabriel Arana.  Note:  Arana notes that many universities shun ROTC because the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law discriminates against people who are openly homosexual, and calls upon ROTC officers to reject the military's "insularity" and address whether the law is reasonable.  See 19 February response by the ROTC officers.
• 19 February 2008 Cornell Daily Sun Op-Ed "ROTC Officers Address ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’".  The Cornell Army ROTC officers asked in a 14 February column to address whether the  "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law is reasonable points out that the law was passed by Congress and it "cannot be changed by the military internally".  "Cornell’s discrimination policy (updated Jan. 25 2008), “assists the university to comply with federal, state and local legal mandates in relation to such misconduct.” As of now, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is a matter of federal law. We are obligated to adhere to it and we are prohibited to commission a person who openly violates this law."  They did not discuss the merits of the law, and alluded to the fact that active-duty officers are expected to avoid taking stands on political issues.  They raise the possibility that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law can be overruled by executive order, which is far from certain.
• 6 March 2008 Cornell Daily Sun column "Colonels and Campus Don't Mix: Are ROTC and Academia Compatible?" by Munier Salem.  Note:  Salem argues that the search for truth at a university is "self correcting", while in the military "rank determines who is right and wrong — not the merit of someone’s ideas".  Yet he notes that "ROTC friends tell me that criticism of former military endeavors (Vietnam) and talks of ethics and proper leadership pervade all classroom discussions".  He criticizes military officers for failing to sign up openly gay students, arguing that "The “it was against the law” argument doesn’t carry much weight in my book".
• 6 March 2008 Cornell Daily Sun op-ed "A Cadet Defends ROTC" by Jennifer Speeckaert '08.  Note:  A cadet in Cornell Army ROTC writes "How can we allow homosexuals to shower together when we don’t allow heterosexual men and women to shower together? Personally, I would not feel comfortable showering in front of men."
• 7 March 2008 Cornell Daily Sun column "Another Side of ROTC" by Mike Wacker.  Note:  Wacker concludes: "Cornell ROTC has just as much right to be here as homosexuals, and the values of our university have room for both groups. But if anyone has to be given the boot, it’s the anti-ROTC activists. There is no place at Cornell for their disgraceful attitude towards the military or their hypocritical intolerance."
• 7 March 2008 Cornell Daily Sun article "Digging Below the Stereotypes of ROTC".  Note: The article describes the daily life of ROTC students.
• 14 April 2009 Boston Globe letter "Low blow, and misfire, directed at elite institutions" by Scott Lajoie.  Note:  Responding to Frank Schaeffer's 9 April op-ed, Lajoie notes that other Ivies such as Cornell have ROTC (though Schaffer mentions the low overall participation of Ivies in the longer version of his exposition on the Huffington Post).
• 25 October 2010 Cornell Daily Sun article "As 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Hangs in Limbo, Cornell Grapples With Repercussions".  Note:  "One gay cadet in the Cornell ROTC program said, “I was excited to hear that it was suspended … but I knew that the Department of Defense was ready to appeal [the injunction] ... it seemed that nothing changed, as it was yet another day in the army.”"  LTC Steven Alexander, professor of military science at Cornell said that the university “prohibited discrimination” policy aims to assist the university “to comply with federal, state and local legal mandates” and DADT, as a federal policy, takes precedence over the University’s specific non-discrimination clause.
• 25 Jaunary 2011 Cornell Daily Sun article "Ivies Reconsider ROTC After 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repealed".  Note:  Lt. Colonel Stephen Alexander, professor of military science and head of the Cornell Army ROTC program said “Support for LGBT kids [in ROTC] needs to be developed over time. It’s breaking out over time and we need to develop new policies ...We’re down here waiting for the [DADT] implementation plan that’s supposed to come out in February.” 
• 25 May 2013 Cornell Chronicle article "ROTC students receive commissions as officers".  Note:  Rear Adm. Christopher J. Paul of the U.S. Navy, deputy commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic, said "In other walks of life, human failings may pass unnoticed. In our walk of life, their consequences are almost devastating. … What ensures our success is that our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals and our unconquerable love for them."
• 20 January 2014 Cornell Daily Sun op-ed "Cornell ROTC Does Its Part to Make U.S. Domination Seem Normal" by Caleb Rossiter ’73 PhD ’83.  Note: A graduate from the era in which ROTC was forced off many campuses notes an ROTC poster that reads “Global Reach Starts with Community Outreach” and argues that American military actions go against American interests.  He describes an image on an ROTC poster as "uniformed marchers in an Ithaca parade and students attending classes in their camouflage uniforms, cunningly blending into the foliage of the Arts quad so they can take out unsuspecting academic malefactors".
• 30 December 2015 Wall Street Journal op-ed "At Last, Some Campus Sanity: ROTC Gains" by Jonathan E. Hillman and Cheryl Miller.  Note:  "Yale, with 41 midshipmen, boasts the largest NROTC unit in the Ivy League. Harvard senior Charlotte Falletta was recognized as one of the top 10 Army cadets in the nation... There are plenty of opportunities to improve recruitment efforts. Cornell, MIT and other universities allow prospective students to indicate their interest in the military on their application and pursue ROTC scholarships. Once admitted, interested students receive more information and guidance from ROTC staff. More institutions should adopt this practice... Faculty should also consider designing courses that meet both ROTC and university standards, such as Professor Paul Kennedy ’s popular military history course at Yale... As former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates told an audience at Duke University five years ago: “A return of ROTC back to some of these campuses will not do much good without the willingness of our nation’s most gifted students to step forward.” But if this year’s talented graduates are any indication, many more young Americans will answer that call."
• 26 May 2018 Cornell Chronicle article "18 ROTC cadets commissioned as officers".  Note:  Rear Adm. Erik M. Ross ’88, the current president of the Naval Board of Inspection and Survey, advised the students being commissioned “Read history, read biographies. You can learn from the lessons of those who have gone before us”.

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