Another day, another major news outlet pretending it knows anything about ROTC at Harvard. This time, it's Michael Winerip and the New York Times Magazine. As anyone who's read a sentence or two about the debate at Harvard knows, allowing ROTC or any other recruitment program on campus that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation is a blatant violation of the university's non-discrimination policy. This was Harvard's reason for ending financial support of ROTC in 1995, and university administrators, including President Drew Faust, have consistently cited it ever since. No one in the debate disputes this fact. Even ROTC backers grudgingly acknowledge that one would have to gut the non-discrimination policy in order to allow the program back. Of course, their comfort with throwing LGBT Harvard students under the bus in that fashion is disturbing, but at the very least they acknowledge it.

So one would think that Winerip, being a responsible journalist, would cite this fact near the beginning of the article. Instead, it takes him twenty-five paragraphs to even mention the reason ROTC is not allowed on campus. And when he finally does so, he botches it:

If it’s not antimilitary sentiment, why is R.O.T.C. still banned at these campuses? Four words: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” The law, adopted during the Clinton administration, excludes gay men and lesbians who are open about their sexual orientation from military service. Last month, President Obama renewed a promise to get Congress to overturn the law, but set no timetable

…

R.O.T.C. supporters complain that Harvard’s policy is full of contradictions.

Harvard will not pay the $150,000-a-year cross-registration fee that M.I.T. charges to have Harvard students take military science courses there. But university staff members are used to raise that money from wealthy alumni sympathetic to R.O.T.C. And Harvard accepts about $1 million a year from the military in the form of scholarships that cover the cost of tuition for cadets and midshipmen.

Further, while banning R.O.T.C., Harvard is a host to other military-oriented programs. The Kennedy School of Government there runs a yearlong National Security Fellows program for 20 men and women, a large percentage of them midcareer military officers.

I'll admit that using university staff members to raise money for the cross-registration fee is a violation of the non-discrimination policy, and should be stopped. Winerip's argument about accepting military scholarships and not rejecting military applications for fellowships out of hand, however, is just silly. Harvard accepts tuition payments from all sources, and I really don't see the difference between accepting a military applicant for a fellowship and accepting a freshman student who went to an anti-gay parochial school.

Really, people, the principle is simple. Non-discrimination means non-discrimination, whatever motives the ROTC advocates want to assign to Harvard's administration. The person with the power to bring ROTC back to Harvard is Barack Obama, and until he halts Don't Ask Don't Tell discharges ROTC has no place at a just Harvard.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took the occasion to chide Columbia for its lack of on-campus ROTC. "I don't think that's right," Mr. McCain said. "Shouldn't the students here be exposed to the attractiveness of serving in the military, particularly as an officer?" Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) readily agreed, calling Columbia's anti-ROTC stance a "mistake." 

From last night's Democratic debate, as reported by The Hill:

Obama and Edwards both said that they supported withholding funding from higher education institutions that do not provide ROTC programs to students. Clinton initially said she would enforce laws to stop funding but later said of prominent schools that do not have ROTC programs that "there are ways they can work out fulfilling that obligation."

What they were talking about is the Solomon Amendment — a law passed in 1996 (and upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court) that allows the Secretary of Defense to strip a college or university of all Federal funding if the school bans/prohibits ROTC or any other military recruitment on campus.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is a misguided policy. For the time being, though, it is the law of the land, and we see no sign that the Ivies' protest is having any impact on it. Meanwhile, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines defend all Americans, gay or straight.