Where did ROTC go? Don’t ask, don’t tell

What does Brown have against the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC)? The program faced heavy student and faculty opposition during the Vietnam War, producing its last graduate in 1972. It remains barred from access to the University, allegedly because of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, established under President Bill Clinton, that restricts openly gay individuals from serving in the military. But even were DADT abolished, it is quite probably the case that the University’s strong anti-war and anti-military disposition would continue, and ROTC would not return. Such unfortunate and short-sighted attitudes are harmful not only to the military, but also to students, and the University, even from a “liberal” perspective.

The dozens of anti-war columns written for The Brown Daily Herald invariably harp on the theme of sensitivity: abrasive relations between the United States’ military and the Middle East will continue so long as the military continues to misunderstand Arabs and Islam, mistreating those with whom it interacts on a daily basis. The army is full of poorly educated, lower class Americans, who (according to the more John-Edwardian among us) are forced to do the dirty work for rich, white, upper-class American businessmen.

Allow me to offer a simple argument as a general response: if a Brown education tends to improve awareness of and toleration for different cultures and religions, military officers educated at Brown will be more aware and tolerant. Could one rationally claim otherwise? Unlikely. If it is true that the Army is socioeconomically and educationally biased toward the bottom of the spectrum, and this is the source of many of its deficiencies, the obvious solution is to encourage the well-educated and wealthy to join. Likewise, if it is assumed that individuals in positions of power (i.e., the well-educated and wealthy) have no personal stake in the war, and therefore are more casually willing to use the warfare option, the clear solution is encourage young men and women from higher economic tiers to join. It is thus profoundly hypocritical for Brown to hinder its students from serving.

ROTC provides several additional, distinct advantages. Many good students, admitted to Brown, choose to attend elsewhere because of the absence of an ROTC program, or simply do not apply in the first place. In addition to attracting these students with ROTC, their tuition is largely or fully paid by government / military scholarships, simultaneously easing the students’ financial burden, as well as supplementing financial aid awards that the University would otherwise provide on its own, saving money to be used elsewhere. It is true that Brown students currently can (and, to a limited extent, do) participate in the program at Providence College. This, however, requires a car and a regular 5am commute, as well as a huge time burden stemming from Brown’s unwillingness to give course credit for the ROTC Military Science classes required every semester.

The many advantages of ROTC should be clear at this point; let us turn now to the lingering question of the DADT policy. For the purposes of this argument, let us assume (as do most in the anti-ROTC crowd) that DADT is a useless relic of the past, with no foundation in logic, and providing no advantage to the performance of the armed forces. Indeed, many leaders in the military have acknowledged as much, and real efforts are being made to change the policy. As external case-studies, Israel and Britain have recently allowed homosexuals to serve openly, with no significant difficulties resulting from the change.

This information does not argue for Brown’s current stance against ROTC; indeed, quite the opposite. With openness comes awareness. Officers trained in Brown’s open and tolerant atmosphere will take their attitudes with them into service. If DADT is a dying relic that will not withstand objective scrutiny, why not make every effort to expose it to scrutiny? Is it not Brown’s mission to train leaders? Even those who are staunchly anti-military must acknowledge that attempting to keep the armed forces away (i.e., by banning ROTC) will not make the military disappear.

Thus, we at Brown have a choice. We can either invent reasons to dislike the military and keep it off of our campus (all the while feeling extremely self-righteous), or we can educate the nation’s best and brightest to become the military’s future leaders. Brown was once proud of its sacrifices for the good of the nation; witness the beautiful arch at the base of Lincoln Field. It has been 36 years. Let’s bring back ROTC. •