Harvard ROTC Coverage: 2000

Harvard ROTC Coverage: 2000 - present

ROTC groups at MIT that include Harvard students: Army (Paul Revere Battalion), Navy (Old Ironsides Battalion) and Air Force (Doolittle's Raiders).

2000:

17 February 2000 Harvard Crimson article "In the Navy". Note: The Crimson chronicles the life of ROTC students and their commute to MIT, starting at 5:30 AM.
20 March 2000 Harvard Crimson article "Harvard Students to Head MIT ROTC Unit".
May - June 2000 Harvard Magazine article "Setting Sail".
July / August 2000 Harvard Magazine photo with caption "At ROTC commissioning ceremonies...".
22 September 2000 Harvard Crimson article "Harvard ROTC Unit Named Best in Nation". Note: Harvard students comprise 50% of the battalion.
28 September 2000 Harvard University Gazette article "Paul Revere ROTC Unit is honored with national award"

2001:

12 January 2001 Harvard Crimson article "Students Receive Navy Recruitment E-mail" Comment: Harvard College allowed the Navy to send recruiting e-mail to undergraduates in January 2001, in compliance with the regulations implementing the Solomon Amendment.
27 April 2001 MIT ROTC Pass in Review Speech by LTG Terry Scott
12 September 2001 Harvard Crimson article "Terrorist Acts Stun, Sadden Harvard Students". Note: "Charlie Cromwell ’02, an Army ROTC member, failed to get through to military personnel in Washington. I worked in that wing of the Pentagon this summer, and I haven’t been able to get through to my coworkers,” Cromwell said. “I have no idea if they’re okay.”"
4 October 2001 Wall Street Journal article "Bring Back ROTC? No, Not at Harvard, Despite New Support"
5 October 2001 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC Debate Sparks Controversy in Council".
9 October 2001 Harvard Crimson article "Summers Expresses Pride in ROTC". Note: President Summers referred to military service as “noble” and said “We need to be careful about adopting any policy on campus of non-support for those involved in defending the country ... Every Harvard student should be proud that we have in our midst students who make the commitment to ROTC.”
10 October 2001 Fox News report "Harvard Alumni Urge Return of Banished ROTC Program"
10 October 2001 Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus Press Release "Harvard Gay and Lesbian Alumni Respond to ROTC"
11 October 2001 Associated Press report "Harvard alumni urge return of banned ROTC"
11 October 2001 Harvard Salient column "ROTC and Relativism" by Claire McCusker.
12 October 2001 Orlando Sentinel column "Harvard vs. Texas A&M: Which shares your values?" by Peter A. Brown NF '82
14 October 2001 PolkOnline editorial "Harvard should let ROTC on campus"
14 October 2001 St. Petersburg Times column "Let the ROTC return to Ivy League campuses" by Philip Gailey
15 October 2001 Harvard Crimson column "Bring Back ROTC Now" by John F. Bash ’03
17 October 2001 Washington Times article "Harvard Alumni Want ROTC Back"
18 October 2001 Bay Windows article "Support grows at Harvard to reinstate on-campus ROTC". Note: The article quotes later-to-be Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Gregory Mankiw who said he has "always been saddened by the university's policy toward ROTC. To protest the military's policy toward homosexuals, the faculty and administration (who are mostly liberal and upper-income) place a burden on students interested in ROTC training (who, I suspect, are mostly conservative and from working-class families). This policy acts like a tax on diversity among the student body, if diversity is judged by viewpoint and life experience, and thus works against one of the school's stated goals."
19 October 2001 Harvard Crimson column "Banned Without a Cause?" by Jason L. Steorts '03
19 October 2001 Yale Herald article "At Harvard, a struggle to bring back ROTC".
23 October 2001 Daily Princetonian article "New wave of support spurs debate of Harvard ROTC"
29 October 2001 Weekly Standard column "Harvard Hates ROTC" by Erin Sheley '02
29 October 2001 US News column "Uncle Sam needs you" by John Leo
31 October 2001 National Review column "Crimson Shame: Harvard's ROTC problem" by Stanley Kurtz PhD '90
November 2001 Perspective Editorial "ROTC has no place at Harvard". Note: Perspective identifies itself as "Harvard-Radcliffe's Liberal Monthly. We are the only politically progressive, general-issues magazine on campus."
2 November 2001 Wall Street Journal publication of the 26 October 2001 speech on public service by President Summers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Note: President Summers said "It was a very significant thing for our country when the tragic events of the Vietnam War period led to disaffection, which in many ways lives with us today, toward people who wear uniforms ... It is all too common for us to underestimate the importance of clearly expressing our respect and support for the military and individuals who choose to serve in the armed forces of the United States ... I hope that when you have this award next year, among those who will be recognized will be those who have served our country in uniform. Because I think we need to remember that of all the kinds of public service, there is a special nobility, a special grace to those who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for our country."
2 November 2001 Wall Street Journal editorial "'A Special Grace': Larry Summers brings courage to Harvard". Comment: This editorial praises President Summers' Kennedy School speech and advocates ROTC at Harvard.
4 November 2001 Boston Globe column "Maddening deeds at US universities" by William J. Bennett JD '71
11 November 2001 President Summers Sends Letter of Support to Harvard ROTC Cadets
11 November 2001 ROTC cadets form honor guard at Harvard's Veterans Day commemoration
15 November 2001 New York Times obituary "Nathan Pusey, Harvard President Through Growth and Turmoil Alike, Dies at 94". Note: After demonstrators in 1969 demanded that Harvard ban ROTC entirely and took over University Hall, and were removed by police, "Hugh Calkins, a member of the Harvard Corporation, said it was the essence of a university to try to resolve disagreements by rational persuasion rather than the exercise of power. A member of Students for a Democratic Society retorted: ''Nonsense. Persuasion doesn't mean any more in a university than it does outside. All that counts is power. You have it now, and we intend to get it.''"
16 November 2001 Harvard Crimson news article "Summers Speaks Out on Patriotism"
16 November 2001 Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal column "A Harvard Hero" by Seth Lipsky '68
19 November 2001 Harvard Crimson column "Pointing Us Nowhere" by Ross Douthat '02
19 November 2001 Marketplace radio commentary "Best and Brightest" by Daniel Sullivan '87
20 November 2001 Wall Street Journal column "Best of the Web Today". Comment: This makes the point that it makes sense to support the return of ROTC to Harvard even if one opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
21 November 2001 Harvard Crimson news article "ROTC Group Raises Its Voice". Comment: The ROTC Association is an undergraduate organization that aims to increase awareness on campus of the military. The group is now called the National Defense Forum.
25 November 2001 Boston Globe article "Harvard head urges a deeper patriotism"
27 November 2001 President Summers and Leaders of "Advocates for Harvard ROTC" in Harvard Yard
29 November 2001 Harvard Crimson editorial "Respect Students Who Serve"
2 December 2001 Boston Herald editorial "Patriotism on campus"
3 December 2001 CNN report "Harvard Patriotism"
6 December 2001 Harvard Independent column "More than money" by Michael Zachilli '03
6 December 2001 Harvard Independent column "Bring it back!" by Travis Batty '02
6 December 2001 Harvard Independent article "The crimson corps" by Brandon Fail '03
6 December 2001 Boston Herald article "War drives push to lift ban on ROTC at Harvard"
7 December 2001 Syndicated columnist Patrick Healy "Harvard chief wants academe to reflect mainstream U.S. values"
13 December 2001 Harvard Yearbook Recognizes ROTC
18 December 2001 Advocates for Harvard ROTC News Tidbits
18 December 2001 Letter by Caspar W. Weinberger
18 December 2001 Advocates for Harvard ROTC does not solicit or accept money

2002:

January/February 2002 Harvard Magazine "Undergraduate Update" (near bottom of article)
4 January 2002 Notable New Members of Advocates for Harvard ROTC
16 January 2002 Associated Press report "Harvard University president has faced several challenges during first year". Comment: The article cites President Summers' expressions of support for ROTC as one of the highlights of his first 6 months in office.
18 January 2002 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC Funding Raises Concern". Comment: President Summers raises the possibility that switching to official Harvard funding of ROTC might make sense in terms of eliminating unorthodox accounting. President Summers has a longstanding concern about unorthodox accounting, stressing in public comments for years that transparency in accounting is a "most important innovation" for many institutions.
21 January 2002 US News column "Carping in Harvard Yard" by John Leo
30 January 2002 SheThinks.org column "ROTC Renaissance" by Matt Continetti. Comment: The efforts of Advocates for Harvard ROTC mentioned in this column began far before September 11th; the group has been active since 1988.
31 January 2002 Harvard Crimson editorial "A Principled Stance on ROTC"
February 2002 Army ROTC Newsletter video of President Summers of Harvard and Cadet Cromwell of Harvard expressing appreciation for ROTC.
7 February 2002 Harvard Crimson column "Explaining the Uniform" by Charles B. Cromwell '02. Comment: Cromwell, president of the undergraduate group "Harvard ROTC Association", announces a series of meetings and events to promote ROTC on the Harvard campus. Speaking to this group would be a great way for high-profile people to show their support for ROTC at Harvard. If you have any suggestions or volunteers, contact Advocates for Harvard ROTC and we'd be glad to pass them along to Cromwell. The group is now called the National Defense Forum.
8 February 2002 Lawrence Eagle-Tribune "He fights to restore Harvard's ROTC". Comment: Profile of the Chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC.
11 February 2002 Harvard Crimson article "President’s style gives conservatives hope"
20 February 2002 Harvard Crimson column "Mutual Benefits" by Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan ’02. Comment: The newly-elected head of the Undergraduate Council Sujean S. Lee ’03 is a supporter of ROTC and wants the Undergraduate Council to take up the issue.
22 February 2002 Harvard Crimson article "General Visits Campus, Meets with ROTC". Comment: The visit was to facilitate collaboration and training using the expertise of Harvard and MIT.
2 April 2002 First Annual Harvard National Security Fellow - ROTC Cadet Mentorship Breakfast
4 April 2002 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers Meets with Harvard ROTC Cadets
11 April 2002 Boston Phoenix article "Young guns". Comment: ROTC cadets at Paintball Heaven.
26 April 2002 MIT ROTC Tri-Service Pass in Review ceremony
30 April 2002 Marshall N. Carter speaks to the Harvard ROTC Association. Comment: The group is now called the National Defense Forum.
May / June 2002 Harvard Magazine article "ROTC Resurgent". See letters published in the July / August issue.
May / June 2002 Harvard Magazine article "Civil Soldiers". Comment: Soldiers Field, where Harvard's playing fields are located, was donated by a group of alumni, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was used for ROTC drilling for generations.
2 May 2002 Harvard University Gazette "ROTC cadet receives top award". Comment: Harvard ROTC cadet Charles Cromwell '02 was named a winner of the George C. Marshall award. President Bush was a speaker at the award seminar.
5 May 2002 Harvard Undergraduate Council passes resolution "ROTC Student Services Act" (full text here).
6 May 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Council Asks University To Help Cadets Earn ROTC Credit". Comment: This resolution makes it easier for Harvard professors to have their courses count for ROTC credit as well as Harvard credit.
8 May 2002 Harvard Crimson editorial "Council Bill Supports Cadets"
10 May 2002 Harvard College Financial Aid Office adds to its Web site a letter from LTC Brian Baker, Commander of the Paul Revere Army ROTC Battalion, about full-tuition ROTC scholarships at Harvard.
27 May 2002 Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal column "Crimson and Camouflage: Will Harvard bring back ROTC?" by Brendan Miniter. Reader Responses.
June / July 2002 Policy Review article "An Open Letter to Lawrence H. Summers" by Chester E. Finn Jr. '65 MAT '67 EdD '70.
3 June 2002 Washington Times Op-Ed "Harvard's Islamic embrace" by Pat Collins MBA '02
5 June 2002 Washington Times letter "Harvard's renascent ROTC" by Michael Segal '76
5 June 2002 ROTC Commissioning Ceremony in Harvard Yard with remarks by President Lawrence Summers. Note: LTC Brian Baker said "President Larry Summers and Dean Harry Lewis have done more for ROTC in the past 12 months than any leader at Harvard in the past 40 years. Harvard ROTC student participation has nearly doubled in their time."
5 June 2002 remarks by President Lawrence Summers at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony.
6 June 2002 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC: Post-Sept. 11 support for military rekindles debate". Note: The Harvard National Security Fellow - ROTC Cadet Mentorship Breakfast referred to in the article was actually organized by ROTC and the National Security Fellows and supported financially by the Harvard ROTC Alumni Fund.
6 June 2002 Washington Times editorial "Harvard still hates America". Comment: The editorial misquotes Michael Segal's 5 June letter; a correction appeared in a letter published on 10 June.
6 June 2002 National Review column "Jihad on Campus" by Pat Collins MBA '02
6 June 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Three Harvard ROTC Students Commissioned"
6 June 2002 Harvard Crimson article "The Cheerleader". Comment: Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. ’53, Kenan professor of Government at Harvard, cites President Summers' deliberate approach on the ROTC issue as evidence that Summers is not a "bull in a china shop".
6 June 2002 Harvard Crimson article "15 Seniors who you hopefully met: The Soldier: Brian R. Smith". Comment: This profile of 2LT Smith lists some of his accomplishments but leaves out his crucial role in the passage of the "ROTC Student Services Act", covered in a previous Crimson article.
6 June 2002 Harvard University Gazette "Seniors take oath at ROTC ceremony"
6 June 2002 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal item "Progress at Harvard" in "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto. Comment: Taranto notes the importance of President Summers' appearance at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony, quotes from Summers' speech, and reflects on the attitude of America's enemies about homosexuality.
10 June 2002 Washington Times letter "Harvard ROTC cadets still have their eyes on the prize" by Michael Segal '76. Comment: This letter corrects the misquote in the 6 June Washington Times editorial and quotes President Summers and LTC Baker describing the progress at Harvard in promoting ROTC.
11 June 2002 New York Times column "The End of an Uncivil War" by Nicholas D. Kristof. Comment: Liberal New York Times columnist Kristof notes the importance of President Summers' appearance at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony and reflects on the attitude of America's enemies about homosexuality. See letters published 13 June, 14 June and 21 June.
11 June 2002 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal item "Progress on West 43rd Street" in "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto. Comment: Taranto and Kristof reflect on the ROTC program and on the attitude of America's enemies about homosexuality.
13 June 2002 New York Times letters "A Truce: The Army and the Ivy" about the 11 June Kristof column.
14 June 2002 New York Times letter "An Ivy-Pentagon Pact" by Nathaniel G. Butler '68 MBA '75. Comment: Butler suggests that elite universities "make a deal with the admirals and generals... to discontinue the `don't ask, don't tell' policy" about homosexuality in the military. However, the Pentagon does not have the power to make such a deal. The rules about homosexuality are not Pentagon policy, they are federal law. This is corrected in a 21 June letter.
21 June 2002 New York Times letter "Gays and the Military" by Michael Segal '76. This corrects the 14 June letter.
24 June 2002 National Review column "All-American Summers" by Jason Steorts '03.
July / August Harvard Magazine "Humiditas" (coverage of the ROTC Commissioning in June).
July / August Harvard Magazine "Bring back ROTC?" (letters about the article in the May / June issue).
2 August 2002 Harvard Crimson article "FAS Course Will Count for ROTC: Cadets may receive credit for taking Harvard government course". Comment: Harvard had qualms about giving Harvard credit for ROTC courses. Undeterred, ROTC proponents have arranged ROTC credit for a Harvard course taught by a world-class expert who has taught at the Naval War College and served on the National Security Council.
23 August 2002 InstaPundit item "READER JASON STRAUSS writes from Harvard Law School to report that the law school has decided to open up to military recruiters. The memorandum from Dean Clark, which he shared, speaks in terms of legal necessities and federal funding, but I can't help wondering if this is Larry Summers' influence."
23 August 2002 Harvard Law School allows military recruiters (memorandum from Dean Robert C. Clark).
26 August 2002 Harvard Law School announcement "Dean Robert C. Clark Announces Change to HLS Military Recruiting Policy" (public announcement by Harvard Law School of the memorandum from Dean Robert C. Clark circulated on 23 August).
26 August 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Law School Will Allow Official Recruiting Visits by Military". Comment: The article points out that this change in policy at Harvard Law School brings its policies in line with existing policies at Harvard College. This article also quotes an Air Force spokeswoman saying that the decision to invoke the Solomon Amendment was prompted by a change made in 2000 giving the Department of Defense “more options regarding enforcement” of the law, presumably referring to the Department of Defense regulations of 13 January 2000 holding an entire university accountable for the actions of each of its schools.
26 August 2002 Associate Press article "Harvard Law OK's Military Recruiters"
27 August 2002 Boston Globe article "Harvard Law ends its ban on military".
27 August 2002 Chronicle of Higher Education article "Harvard Law School, in Shift, Will Allow Military to Recruit at Campus Office" Comment: Lindsay C. Harrison, a third-year law student and president of Lambda, a gay-student organization, said "Every interview slot is going to be filled with gay students wanting to talk about this discriminatory policy."
28 August 2002 New York Times article "Harvard Law School Bows to U.S. and Allows Military Recruiters"
28 August 2002 Wall Street Journal editorial "Harvard Doesn't (Quite) Hate America" Note: The online copy appeared several days later.
29 August 2002 Boston Phoenix editorial "US military bullies Harvard Law School". Comment: The editorial says "Last December, after Congress strengthened provisions of the Solomon Amendment, the Air Force again asked Harvard to show that it was in compliance". They are apparently referring to the Department of Defense regulations of 13 January 2000 holding an entire university accountable for the actions of each of its schools.
30 August 2002 Daily News Tribune editorial "Harvard vs. the military"
September 2002 Harvard Student Handbook Policies on ROTC (follow footnote #1 for details). Comment: The rules about homosexuality in the military are referred to as "current federal policy" even though a more accurate description would be "federal law" passed in 1993.
September 2002 Harvard University Freshman Dean's Office "Guide for the Class of 2006 (section on ROTC)". Comment: The rules about homosexuality in the military are referred to as "the current policy of the military", which is not accurate since this is a federal law passed in 1993 that the military is obliged to follow.
3 September 2002 Boston Globe letter "If only 'Veritas' ruled at Harvard" Comment: The letter urged Harvard to "negotiate a change in the current ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy" about homosexuality in the military, which Mr. Butler characterized as a "repugnant policy of the Pentagon". However, this would require more than a change in a "policy of the Pentagon". The rules about homosexuality in the military are federal law, passed by a Democratic House and Senate in 1993 and signed by a Democratic president.
9 September 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Air Force To Recruit At Law School". Note: The Department of Defense regulations from 2000 referred to in the article were the 13 January 2000 regulations.
9 September 2002 Harvard Crimson editorial "Fight the Air Force".
9 September 2002 Harvard Crimson "Editorial Notebook" "Pocketbook Patriotism" by David M. DeBartolo '03, Editorial Chair of the Crimson.
9 September 2002 Harvard Crimson Op-Ed "Military Buys Discrimination" by Stephanie M. Skier '05.
11 September 2002 Harvard Crimson Op-Ed "Harvard in America, a Year Later" by Harry R. Lewis '68, Dean of Harvard College. Comment: Dean Lewis discussed the ROTC issue, saying it had not "moved to a place where it would not have been without Sept. 11".
11 September 2002 remarks of Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers at the September 11th commemoration in Harvard Yard. Comment: President Summers said "Let us honor those who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedom and show our support for those among us who have the courage to make that fateful choice".
13 September 2002 Harvard Crimson Op-Ed "Give the Military Another Look" by Lt. j.g. William P. Moynahan ’99.
17 September 2002 Harvard Crimson Op-Ed "Cadets Deserve Support" by Zachary K. Goldman '05.
19 September 2002 Harvard Crimson column "Security Studies Are Strong" by Ernani J. DeAraujo ’03 and Oliver B. Libby ’03.
20 September 2002 Harvard Crimson article "At HLS, Protests Will Greet Air Force"
20 September 2002 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal item "Ivy League Sanity" in "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto. Comment: Taranto hails Harvard President Lawrence Summers and Columbia undergraduate Eric Chen as examples of clear thinking in the Ivy League. Chen describes advances in ROTC at Columbia.
3 October 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Yale Law Suspends Recruiting Policy". Comment: "Yale Law School has temporarily suspended its requirement that all recruiters sign a nondiscrimination policy". It appears that Yale is maintaining its nondiscrimination policy but has given a waiver to the military, as required by federal law. Such an approach focuses the controversy onto Congress, which has the power to change the law.
4 October 2002 Harvard Salient column "ROTC on the Move: The time has come to end a discriminatory policy" by Francis X. Altiere.
7 October 2002 Harvard Crimson column "ROTC Redux" by Jason L. Steorts '03
8 October 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Law Faculty Make Case Against Military".
17 October 2002 Harvard Salient column "The path ahead: What Summers can and must do to help our university" by Gladden J. Pappin.
24 October 2002 Harvard Crimson article "A Few Good Days With a Few Good Men (And Women): A week in the life of ROTC". Comment: The article documents that soldiers have returned to Soldiers Field, noting "The Army is at Harvard for P.T. this morning. Sergeant Major Kraig E. Haas supervises as James S. Foreman ’04 leads stretching and stadium runs". As described in the May / June 2002 Harvard Magazine article "Civil Soldiers", Soldiers Field, where Harvard's playing fields are located, was donated by a group of alumni, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was used for ROTC drilling for generations, a tradition restarted this semester.
30 October 2002 Northeast ROTC Commanders Visit Harvard.
November/December Harvard Magazine article "Military Recruiters Get Official Welcome".
November/December Harvard Magazine column "Crimson, White, and Blue" by Garrett M. Graff '03. See letters published in the January/February 2003 issue.
12 November 2002 Boston Globe article "Despite concerns, law schools admit military recruiters".
20 November 2002 Harvard Crimson article "Author Argues For Strong President During Wartime". Comment: Director of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins Prof. Eliot Cohen '77 (former Harvard ROTC cadet and father of current Harvard ROTC cadet Raphael S. Cohen '04) calls for return of ROTC to Harvard, and Harvard Prof. Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 speculates on whether it is better to be a general or a professor.
12 December 2002 Fayetteville Observer column "Harvard considers bringing back ROTC" by Margaret O'Connor. Comment: Teenagers in North Carolina have heard about the increased stature of ROTC at Harvard and are hoping to enroll.
13 December 2002 Second Annual Harvard National Security Fellow - ROTC Cadet Mentorship Breakfast.

2003:

January/February 2003 Harvard Magazine letters "ROTC at Harvard" (letters about the "Crimson, White, and Blue" article in the November/December issue). Note: Responses to these letters appeared in the March - April issue.
7 January 2003 FrontPage Magazine article "Harvard vs. ROTC". Correction: ROTC is not banned at Dartmouth.
15 January 2003 Harvard Crimson column "Letting Students Be Soldiers" by Richard C. Arthur. Comment: Arthur outlines steps universities could take to facilitate students serving in the military. Currently, one student who managed to squeeze military service into his Harvard years has been called up to serve. Arthur also points out benefits of military experience among the nation's leaders: "One need look no farther than Clinton’s first presidential term as proof of the miscalculations that can occur when ignorance and distrust are pronounced features of the civil-military relationship."
21 February 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Study: Military Policy on Gays Unfounded; Harvard research shows ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ does not protect privacy". Comment: The study suggests there is a drawback to using a privacy rationale for justifying the 1993 Federal Law mandating the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy for the military since the law "mandates investigations into peoples’ sexual orientation that can often be “invasive”". It also points out that "the privacy rationale will soon become less relevant, with a planned military barracks construction program giving most men and women private baths and bedrooms within the next few years". This leaves unanswered important questions about sexual privacy when troops are deployed, but implies it may be useful to think of the issue of gays in the military as a gender issue, similar to issues about women in the military.
March -April 2003 Harvard Magazine letters "The Debate About ROTC". Note: These are responses to letters in the January - February issue.
5 March 2003 Eliot and Rafi Cohen - Family Tradition in Harvard ROTC
5 March 2003 Charles and Jeff Munns - Family Tradition in Naval ROTC
30 March 2003 New York Times article "Military Mirrors Middle-Class America".
31 March 2003 Wall Street Journal Best of the Web Today "Masters of the Obvious" by James Taranto. Comment: Taranto discusses the 30 March New York Times article "Military Mirrors Middle-Class America" and suggests "the most obvious way of getting more Harvard students into the military: reinstating ROTC on campus... If the absence of recruits with an elite education really is a national problem, the first step toward solving it is an attitude adjustment in the ivory towers".
2 April 2003 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed column "My Ivy League Soldier: Why is that such a rare combination?" by Regina E. Herzlinger. Comment: A Harvard Business School Professor tells of her son, who did ROTC while at Harvard, and says the country would be better off if more graduates of elite colleges served in the military. Prof. Herzlinger is a member of Advocates for Harvard ROTC.
14 May 2003 Defense Business Practice Implementation Board meeting minutes. Note: In a meeting of the Defense Business Board, Fred Cook said "we would like to have a DBB study on an effort to bring ROTC back to elite Northeast campuses that kicked them off campus during Vietnam. We want to set up meetings with the Assistant Secretaries of the Services to see if we could move forward." Dana Mead noted "There is an alumni contingent at Harvard, that would like to see this back."
3 June 2003 Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony.
3 June 2003 Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers' speech at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony. Note: President Summers said "Harvard aspires to train leaders of our country" and includes military leaders in this universal vision for the university.
4 June 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Eight Cadets Become Officers In Yard Ceremony".
4 June 2003 Bull Moose Republicans Op-Ed "ROTC and the Ivy League: Land of the Brave?" by Bill Fusz.
5 June 2003 Harvard Gazette article "ROTC members commissioned: Graduates prepared to serve their country". See also a photo of some of the graduating midshipmen.
July/August 2003 Harvard Magazine article "Commencement Confetti". Note: the article includes a photo and account of Rear Admiral Charles L. Munns administering the oath of office to his son, graduating midshipman Jeffrey C. Munns '03.
30 July 2003 Defense Business Practice Implementation Board meeting minutes. Note: In a discussion about ROTC on elite colleges by the Defense Business Board, Fred Cook said "Dr. David Chu is highly supportive but the Services are reluctant." Dennis Bovin said "Mr. Larry Summers indicated that the mood on campus has changed. Now might be a good time to get onto campus."
August 2003 Harvard College Freshman Dean's Office "Guide for the class of 2007: ROTC".
10 August 2003 Washington Post Op-Ed "Repressing ROTC" by Christina Hoff Sommers.
24 August 2003 New York Times Magazine article "Harvard Radical" by James Traub '76. Note: Traub cites Harvard President Lawrence Summers' support for ROTC as one of the defining stands of his presidency.
25 August 2003 National Public Radio "All Things Considered" segment "In Hilla, U.S. Troops and Locals Get Along". Note: NPR interviewed Harvard graduate Seth Moulton '01 about his TV show in Iraq.
25 September 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Radical Group To Rival BGLTSA: Founders favor queer ‘resistance’". The newly-formed "Queer Resistance Front" "protested and picketed the ROTC table at the Freshman and Upperclass Activities Fairs for their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy towards queer members of the military."
10 October 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Panel Discusses Military Policy Toward Gays".
28 October 2003 Harvard Crimson column "Respecting ROTC" by Travis R. Kavulla ’06.
29 October 2003 Harvard Crimson article "More Students Enroll in ROTC: Class of 18 first-years is largest in recent years".
13 November 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Pressure Builds Against Military Recruiting: Despite HLS Petition, Summers Says Harvard Won't Challenge Solomon". Note : University General Counsel Robert W. Iuliano wrote “[F]or a variety of institutional considerations, including the partnership that exists between universities and the federal government in a number of important areas, the university itself does not expect to take the adversarial step of initiating litigation”.
18 November 2003 Harvard Crimson article "HLS Professors Will Soon File Solomon Suit: Summers explains University’s reluctant stance on litigation".
20 November 2003 Defense Business Practice Implementation Board meeting minutes. Note: The participants in Defense Business Board meeting discussed "implementing ROTC programs at top tier schools". Dov Zakheim mentioned the effort to restore ROTC at Columbia and said "I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and he is extremely interested ... We would like to get on the campus at Harvard. The President of Harvard has showed an interest in this." Bill Carr raised the possibility of restoring ROTC at Yale, citing the difficulty of Yale students traveling to ROTC programs at other colleges. He also discussed the tradeoff between getting top tier cadets and paying the high cost of ROTC scholarships to top tier schools. The group recommended to "approach Harvard's President first and if successful, then approach Yale, Columbia and Brown".
24 November 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Students Get West Point Experience, For a Weekend".
25 November 2003 Harvard Crimson editorial "Acting Unwise on Solomon".
8 December 2003 Harvard Crimson article "Alums’ Letter Blasts Summers: Gay, lesbian alums call for Harvard to fight Solomon Amendment.

2004:

14 January 2004 Harvard Crimson article "Faculty File Brief Against Pentagon". Note: A majority of Harvard Law School faculty argue that denying access of military recruiters to some Harvard Law School facilities does not violate the provision in the Solomon Amendment about universities prohibiting or preventing the military from "gaining entry to campuses, or access to students ... on campuses, for purposes of military recruiting".
20 February 2004 Harvard Crimson article "Government Pushes Solomon Amendment".
30 March 2004 "Chairman Cox Praises House Passage of H.R. 3966, Legislation to Revitalize ROTC on Campus". Note: The House of Representatives passed the bill by 343-81. Rep. Cox, a co-sponsor of the bill said it "might just as well be called the Harvard Act--because it squarely addresses the scandal of Harvard University and other schools banishing ROTC and military recruiters from campus, while cashing Uncle Sam's checks for billions of taxpayer dollars each year from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies fighting the global war on terror."
5 April 2004 Harvard Crimson article "Funds at Risk Due To ROTC Policy".
9 April 2004 Harvard Crimson editorial "Fight Discrimination at All Costs: Harvard should stand strong on ROTC, even if it means losing federal funding".
15 April 2004 Third Annual Harvard National Security Fellow - ROTC Student Breakfast.
7 June 2004 Harvard Crimson article "College Challenges Rigor of ROTC: In the wake of the Korean War, Harvard re-evaluated the role of ROTC on campus".
9 June 2004 "Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2004". Note: Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche DBA '72 was on hand to "show solidarity with a great academic leader and commission a young friend".
9 June 2004 Harvard University Gazette article "ROTC commissioning sends off Harvard officers". Note: More photos are in the 10 June version of this article.
9 June 2004 "Remarks of Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers: ROTC Commissioning Ceremony".
10 June 2004 Harvard Crimson article "Senior To Sail Troubled Waters". Note: An interview with Stephen P. Bosco '04, one of the students commissioned on 9 June. Bosco contrasts the positive attitudes towards ROTC among students to the attitudes among faculty.
20 June 2004 Boston Globe article "As ROTC debate stirs again, a few proud men graduate: Summers salutes Harvard program". Note: Rafi Cohen '06 responded to critics who say that the wealthy and educated send poor, uneducated people to fight their wars by saying "I essentially agree with those critics: There shouldn't be such a deep divide between social classes. That's part of why I enlisted".
September 2004 Harvard Magazine article "Dispatches from the Front: 'You minimize travel'". Note: Vincent J. Tuohey '01 says he appreciates how Harvard President Lawrence Summers has changed the attitude of Massachusetts Hall toward ROTC and the military: "It meant a lot to the alumni over here when he spoke at the [ceremony] and mentioned many of us by name."
4 October 2004 Harvard Crimson column "Recognize ROTC, Recognize War: Keeping ROTC off campus is keeping students in the dark" by Alexander B.H. Turnbull ’05.
18 October 2004 Harvard Crimson article "Rally Decries Military Policy". Note: The article describes the impending presidential approval of legislation clarifying rules for ROTC on college campuses.
18 October 2004 Harvard Crimson letter "Accepting ROTC would condone discrimination" by M Barusch '06 and Jordan Woods '06. The writers respond to the 4 October Crimson column.
30 November 2004 Associated Press article "Harvard Law to Bar Military Recruiters".
30 November 2004 A Perspective from the Professor of Military Science by LTC Brian L. Baker, Professor of Military Science at MIT. Note: LTC Baker, the ROTC leader in charge of Harvard students in Army ROTC said "We’re moving ever so closer to the day when we’ll need to post a Captain and a Sergeant on campus, in the Yard, with access, and University support. I will meet with President Summers this spring to discuss this very issue and intend to request he allow/enable us to take this next step necessary to double our enrollment by 2008."
1 December 2004 Harvard Crimson article "HLS Bans Military".
2 December 2004 Harvard Crimson editorial "Defeating the Solomon Amendment".
16 December 2004 Wall Street Journal article "At Ivy League Schools, ROTC, Long Banned, Plots a Comeback: Push May Stir Up Old Passions On These Elite Campuses; A Beachhead at Harvard". Note: The article discusses the movements to bring back ROTC to Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Brown, backed by the efforts of the Defense Business Board and a request from the military. See letters on 10 January.

2005:

10 January 2005 Wall Street Journal letters "Ivy League Should Open a Long-Closed Door". Note: These letters are in response to the 16 December ROTC article.
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".
21 January 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Solomon Case May Face Appeal". Note: Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried said the Supreme Court "does not like to leave a decision out there that says an act of Congress is unconstitutional". The Bush administration cited the “serious possibility” that the justices will uphold the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment. Harvard Law School is the only law school to have barred military recruiters after the Third Circuit court decision.
23 January 2005 Sunday Times (London) column "The truth about men and women is too hot to handle" by Andrew Sullivan. Note: Sullivan observes that Harvard President Lawrence Summers "backed allowing military recruiters on campus, despite a boycott because of their ban on gays. Some of the faculty have been regretting Summers’s appointment ever since".
7 February 2005 Harvard Crimson article "After Harvard, Yale Law Second To Ban Military Recruiters". Note: Due to a local court ruling against the Solomon Amendment, Yale is not defying the Solomon Amendment, but Harvard is on shaky ground after implementation of the Third Circuit court decision against the Solomon Amendment was halted.
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."
18 February 2005 Wall Street Journal article "Harvard Clash Offers Management Case Study". Note: The article discusses controversy over Harvard President Summers and states that some professors "maintain that Mr. Summers's main failing was running afoul of ideas favored by the liberal elite. Mr. Summers, for example, has expressed his support for Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which was banned from Harvard during the Vietnam era. While falling short of calling for a return, that stance has angered gay students because of the military's prohibition of openly gay soldiers."
25 February 2005 Boston Globe article "Professor's motion seeks to air dissent on Summers". Note: Prof. J. Lorand Matory's motion for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting in March lists Summers' "support for the Reserve Officers Training Corps on campus" as one of two grievances about Summers' term in office.
27 February 2005 New York Times column "The Battle Behind the Battle at Harvard" by James Atlas. Note: Three reasons for the controversy over Harvard President Lawrence Summers are cited. One is that "he would like to see R.O.T.C., which was banished from Harvard during the sit-ins of the 60's, restored to campus".
27 February 2005 Shots in the Dark blog item "A Crucial Issue" by Richard Bradley. Note: Bradley, author of "Harvard Rules", predicts "If the military lifted its ban on gays, the Harvard faculty would vote to bring ROTC back to campus the next week". (The ban on open homosexuality in the military is actually a federal law.)
1 March 2005 Military.com article "Harvard Graduate Answers Call to Duty". Note: Inspired by fellow Harvard student Larry Obst '01 who completed Army ROTC, Moses Bloom '00 joined the Marines.
3 March 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Motion Filed to Censure Summers: Vote on docket for March 15 faculty meeting". Note: The motion lists Summers' "support for the military’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program" as one of two grievances about Summers' term in office.
3 March 2005 Shots in the Dark blog item "The Motion" by Richard Bradley. Note: Bradley quotes the text of Harvard Prof. J. Lorand Matory's motion for the March 15 meeting of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences "to register dissent from Mr. Summers' stated opinions". Of the three issues cited from Harvard President Lawrence Summers' term in office one is "the authorized presence on campus of organizations that infringe upon the equal rights of gay people".
11 May 2005 Harvard Crimson letter "Military Not the Only HLS Recruiter That Discriminates" by Elliott Marc Davis. Note: The writer points out that Harvard Law School allows recruiters to discriminate by race but does not allow military recruiters to follow the "Don't ask, don't tell" federal law.
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". Prof. Cohen, a Harvard ROTC graduate, is pictured here at his son's Harvard ROTC commissioning.
8 June 2005 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC Delays Office Request: Head of training program at MIT decides not to ask Summers for space in Yard". Note: The article says that in a private meeting with LTC Brian Baker in July 2004 President Summers said "that he was “not prepared” to make the argument for ROTC space on campus, according to Baker". Actually, according to Baker, Summers said only that he was not prepared to do so in 2004. Also, the "November 2004 speech" mentioned in the article was actually a letter, never delivered as a speech.
8 June 2005 Harvard Independent article "ROTC Commissioning Ceremony".
8 June 2005 "Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2005". Note: LTC Brian L. Baker, Professor of Military Science at MIT, presented a civilian award for patriotic service to President Summers and thanked him for "supporting our program through thick and thin".
8 June 2005 Harvard University Gazette article "ROTC commissioning ceremony stresses importance of scholars and soldiers". Note: Capt. Vincent Tuohey '01 said "Now more than ever, the armed forces need leaders of your background and education".
9 June 2005 Harvard University Gazette article "Graduating into service: Seven seniors begin military service with ROTC commissioning".
July 2005 Harvard Magazine article "Commencement Confetti: Prepared to Serve". Note: "Lieutenant colonel Brian L. Baker, professor of military science and head of the ROTC program at MIT that Harvard students attend, told the gathering, “I can imagine a day when [Harvard] will allow us to post a captain and a sergeant on campus once again, sometime in the future.” He presented an Army citation and an award to Summers. “You are a true patriot,” he said as he affixed a lapel pin that reads “Patriotic Civilian Service.”"
24 July 2005 New York Times article "All Quiet on the Home Front, and Some Soldiers Are Asking Why". Note: ""Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," said one officer just back from a yearlong tour in Iraq, voicing a frustration now drawing the attention of academic specialists in military sociology". Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr. said he had heard a heavy stream of concerns from current officers that "the military is increasingly isolated from the rest of the country".
26 July 2005 Boston Herald Op-Ed "On national defense, Harvard's boss AWOL" by Virginia Buckingham. Note: She writes "Summers is the one Ivy League president with the guts to lead the charge to return the Reserve Officer Training Corp. to every campus".
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.
20 September 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Law School To Allow Military Recruiters On Campus". Note: Harvard President Lawrence Summers announced that Harvard would file an amicus brief against the Solomon Amendment.
21 September 2005 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal item "The Enemy Within" in "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto. Note: Taranto notes Harvard's concerns about discrimination against gays on campus and notes how it pales in comparison to discrimination against gays by America's enemies.
22 September 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Professors Stand Up To Recruiters: Forty law faculty members file brief opposing military’s presence on campus". Note: The 40 professors claimed that the Solomon Amendment has unlawfully given the military a “unique privilege” to overrule university policies but Professor of Law Janet Halley suggests that Title IX rules on women in universities involves similar compulsion and if the Supreme Court overturns the Solomon Amendment it could use the same reasoning to invalidate Title IX.
22 September 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial "'To Serve Better Thy Country'". Note: The Journal quotes from the words on a gate to Harvard Yard and notes that Harvard Law School's decision to allow military recruiters was grudging.
22 September 2005 National Review column "Do Tell" by David Frum. Note: Frum compares Harvard Law School dean Elana Kagan's exclusion of the military to Harvard President Larry Summers' championing of the military, and suggests that readers check out the Web site for Advocates for Harvard ROTC.
23 September 2005 Harvard Crimson article "In Reversal, Harvard Takes Legal Action on Solomon Case: Brief by 7 schools urges Supreme Court to overturn military recruitment law". Note: The Crimson hears from Professor of Law Janet Halley that the arguments "could conceivably undermine, for example, the high court’s 1983 decision in Bob Jones University v. U.S., which held that the federal government could deny tax-exempt status to a South Carolina college that prohibits interracial dating."
28 September 2005 Harvard Crimson editorial "Upping the Ante: Kagan had to submit to Solomon, now the University must push back". Note: The Crimson editors call for Harvard to push for repeal of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law and assert that "in the civilian world, this type of discrimination has long been considered unconstitutional".
3 October 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Military Presence at Career Forum Sparks Student Protests".
7 October 2005 The World (PRI / BBC / WGBH) radio segment "ROTC Report" (audio here). Note: Harvard Navy ROTC students and faculty are interviewed about the importance of doing ROTC at elite colleges.
13 October 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Experts Debate Army Recruiters: Two law professors argue the constitutinality [sic] of the Solomon Amendment"
13 October 2005 Harvard Crimson article "HLS Protest Takes on Military: Students and profs call on Harvard to help repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy".
24 October 2005 History News Network article "Why Don't Harvard Graduates Join the Military Anymore?" by Richard F. Miller. Note: Miller suggests that a lack of leadership and character education result in an inward-looking attitude.
7 December 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Court Seems Ready To Uphold Solomon Law: Justices slam schools’ free speech claims; only Souter is likely to vote for FAIR". Note: The only argument taken seriously by the Justices was a question about the wording of the 2004 change to the Solomon Amendment, an argument disavowed by the lawyer for FAIR. "Experts weren’t surprised that FAIR spurned the statutory argument, since Congress could just amend the law again" and there is little question about the intent of Congress.
12 December 2005 Harvard Crimson column "Solomon's Other Song: The debate over the Solomon Amendment is about more than gay rights" by Samuel M. Simon '06. Note: Simon writes "The debate over the Solomon Amendment on this campus has largely become a proxy war between those who love the military and those who don’t... The question isn’t whether gays and lesbians at Harvard are moral enough for the military; it’s whether the military is moral enough for Harvard". See 19 December response by Peter H. Brooks '06.
19 December 2005 Harvard Crimson article "Recent Grad Injured By Bomb in Iraq". Note: George Morris ’04 was wounded in Iraq on 5 December and said “I want to get back to my platoon—they are an amazing group of individuals and it is an honor to lead them.”
19 December 2005 Harvard Crimson letter "Majority Of Military Not Poor And Uneducated" by Peter H. Brooks '06. Note: Brooks corrects "a claim based upon what is perceived as common knowledge" in a column by Samuel M. Simon '06 and suggests that such misperceptions are a symptom of the military-civilian divide.
19 December 2005 Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal column "Reporting for Duty: The U.S. military tells Iraqis the truth, and some call it a "scandal"" by John R. Guardiano. Note: Guardiano recounts how "an enterprising young Harvard graduate and physics major, Marine Corps Lt. Seth Moulton, founded his own television show, "Moulton and Mohamed" in Iraq". Moulton was interviewed in 2003 by National Public Radio.
20 December 2005 "The Drill Field Inside the Ivory Tower: Harvard Officer Training the Creation of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps" by Erik Sand '07. Note: Sand, an ROTC midshipman, recounts the how Harvard was ahead of the rest of the country in creating an ROTC program in 1916.

2006:

7 February 2006 Harvard Crimson column "Reasoning with Solomon" by Cormac A. Early '09. Note: Early writes that opposition to military recruiting "marginalizes rational and intelligent opposition to DADT, and acts only in the interests of those who wish to preserve the status quo" and "the University’s objections are more likely to be taken seriously as the legitimate objections of a rational, moderate, and patriotic institution, rather than the irrelevant obstructionism of radical leftists" if military recruiting is allowed.
21 February 2005 New York Sun editorial "Testing Harvard". Note: The Sun notes rumors of an impending resignation of President Summers and notes that he "showed his understanding of the role of Harvard in wartime, beginning with his appearance at a commissioning ceremony for the Reserve Officers Training Corps program that was kicked off Harvard's campus in the era of protest against the war in Vietnam."
22 February 2006 Wall Street Journal editorial "Veritas at Harvard". Note: The Journal notes how ROTC was one of the issues of contention between President Summers and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and notes a similar conflict faced by former Dartmouth president David McLaughlin.
23 February 2006 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed "Coup d'Ecole: Harvard professors oust Larry Summers. Now they must face their students" by Prof. Ruth Wisse. Note: Prof. Wisse points out that President Summers' support for ROTC was one of the reasons for his ouster, notes student support for both Summers and ROTC and predicts "students will sooner or later stand up for their contemporaries who want to serve their country".
6 March 2006 Harvard Crimson article "Court Says Schools Must Let Military on Campus: Ruling by Roberts '76 puts his alma mater in a bind".
10 March 2006 Harvard Crimson editorial "Constitutional, But Immoral: Although technically constitutional, the Solomon Amendment must be fought against". Note: The editorial calls for Harvard to lobby to change the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
13 March 2006 Newsday op-ed "'Fortunate Sons' Should Have to Serve" by Elaine Kamarck. Note: A former aide to Vice President Gore details the problems with the "absence of America's upper classes from military service."
15 March 2006 Harvard Crimson article "All That She Can Be: The women of Harvard Army ROTC strive to find a balance between learning how to fight and learning how to fit in."
3 April 2006 Harvard Crimson article "From Plympton St. to the Pentagon: Caspar Weinberger dies at 88; former Crimson chief served under Nixon, Ford, Reagan". Note: The article quotes Harvard Alumni Association Executive Director Jack P. Reardon Jr. ’60 as saying that “Caspar Weinberger ‘bled’ crimson!” and that he was “endlessly interested in and supportive of Harvard and more especially Harvard students.” He was the co-founder with classmate David Clayman '38 of Advocates for Harvard ROTC and a member of its Advisory Committee until his death. Even in the final year of his life he continued to use his contacts and influence to press for having ROTC at elite colleges.
7 June 2006 Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization formed. Their Web site is www.harvardveterans.org.
7 June 2006 Letter of thanks from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Note: The letter was presented to President Summers at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony that day. Discussing ROTC, Secretary Rumsfeld wrote "Your support has been enormously constructive to the objectives of both our institutions".
7 June 2006 Address by COL (ret) Kenneth G. Swan '56 MD at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony.
7 June 2006 "Remarks at ROTC commissioning ceremony" by Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Note: President Summers said "our country is best served when great universities like this one stand with those who defend the freedom that makes it possible for us to do all the wonderful things that we are able to do here".
7 June 2006 US News and World Report blog item "The ROTC at Harvard" by Michael Barone. Note: The letter from Secretary Rumsfeld to President Summers is quoted.
7 June 2006 Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2006.
7 June 2006 Daily Standard article "From Rumsfeld to Summers: The secretary of Defense sends a note to the outgoing president of Harvard." Note: The letter is the same as the one posted on the Advocates for Harvard ROTC web site on 7 June.
8 June 2006 Harvard Gazette article "ROTC faces down rough weather: Graduates, Summers honored at ceremony". Note: The Gazette notes the letter of thanks to President Summers from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the president's response that "I look forward to the day when it is common and doesn't draw remark when an Ivy League president attends an ROTC commissioning ceremony".
9 June 2006 Washington Times item "Harvard hero" in Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough's "Inside the Ring" column. Note: The letter from Secretary Rumsfeld to President Summers is quoted.
12 June 2006 Harvard Crimson article "Rumsfeld Says He Is 'Most Grateful' for Summers' Support of ROTC". Note: The Crimson reported on the 7 June ROTC Commissioning Ceremony and found a Pentagon spokesman to authenticate the copy of the letter from Secretary Rumsfeld to President Summers posted on the Advocates for Harvard ROTC web site on 7 June.
16 June 2006 TCS Daily column "Profile in Courage" by Michael M. Rosen. Note: Rosen notes that President Summers "received what would otherwise be a kiss of death for any university administrator: a letter of thanks from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praising him for offering a "recognition of [the officers'] personal commitment to serve this great nation.""
1 October 2006 Harvard Crimson article "Military Presence Sparks Protest". Note: To protest the inclusion of the military in the "Career Forum" protesters entered the forum location and changed into "superhero" costumes and "attempted to enlist in the armed forces to protest its ban on openly gay soldiers".
9 October 2006 Greg Mankiw's Blog item "ROTC". Note: The former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors calls for restoring ROTC at Harvard.
6 November 2006 Washington Times column "Not-so-smart college boys" by Suzanne Fields. Note: Fields discusses the history of ROTC at Harvard and writes "An honest embrace of diversity and multiculturalism would require inclusion of the military."
December 2006 Parameters article "Storming the Ivory Tower: The Military's Return to American Campuses" by Marc Lindemann. Note: Lindemann recounts the history of ROTC at the most selective colleges and suggests strategies for increasing the role of the military at such institutions. One suggestion is "to work with like-minded student organizations to bring charismatic service members to speak on campus." Another is to "introduce students to veterans who, after honorably fulfilling their military commitments, have succeeded in business, medicine, law, or politics. Alumni groups, such as “Advocates for ROTC,” are already poised to provide such representatives."
7 November 2006 New York Sun column "The Ivy Soldier" by Seth Gitell. Note: Gitell interviewed Retired Captain Paul Mawn, chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC. Enrollment in the Paul Revere Army ROTC Battalion, based at MIT, has grown 40% during the last year and a half. The Harvard contingent is the biggest, outnumbering students from the host college MIT. Gitell also interviews a Harvard student who tells of "considerable interest in ROTC on the part of his classmates".
19 November 2006 New York Times Op-ed "The Great Liberator" by Lawrence H. Summers. Note: The former Harvard president recounts how "Milton Friedman’s participation on a government commission on the volunteer military in the late 1960s was a kind of intellectual version of the play “Twelve Angry Men.” Gradually, through force of persistent argument and marshaling of evidence, he brought his fellow commission members around to the previously unthinkable view that both our national security and our broader interest would be best served by a volunteer military."
19 December 2006 Harvard Crimson article "Adams House Alum Dies in Car Crash". Note: Jamin B. Wilson ’04, an ROTC graduate, was killed in a car accident Thursday on his way to work at the Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.

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.
29 January 2007 Public Radio International "Open Source" story "Do Americans Need to Serve?" by Christopher Lydon. Note: Lydon interviews Alan Khazei, Alan Gropman, Frank Schaeffer and Seth Moulton '01 about the value of national service.
14 February 2007 Harvard Crimson article "More Than Just an Anthem". Note: Four Harvard ROTC students participated in a color guard at a Harvard-Princeton basketball game on 9 February, the "first at a Harvard athletic venue in many years".
22 February 2007 Harvard Gazette article "Student KSG, HBS veterans honored: Panelists say lead by example biggest wartime lesson". Note: The event, co-sponsored by the Center for Public Leadership and the Institute of Politics, featured an hourlong panel discussion followed by a half-hour of questions from the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum audience.
23 February 2007 Chronicle of Higher Education article "Harvard's Historic Choice". Note: At Penn, Harvard President-elect Drew Faust "was one of a half-dozen professors who met each Tuesday at 7 a.m. during the late 1980s and early 90s to talk informally with the provost about such topics as the expansion of the medical school, the reorganization of the library, and the place of ROTC on the campus".
25 February 2007 Boston Globe editorial "Crimson and camouflage". Note: The Globe notes that there are 100 active-duty or reserve officers at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Business School and reflects on the "salute to Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans" panel, where five officers discussed leadership in combat. "A 1983 Kennedy School graduate, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, director for operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lute said it was his Kennedy School experience that helped him commit to a full career in the military. He encouraged the officers to treat Harvard as a "two-way street," where they are both learners and contributors." Click links for the 20 February 2007 event list of participants, audio and video.
March / April 2007 Harvard Magazine column "The War at Home" by Casey N. Cep '07. Note: The writer quotes ROTC student Olivia Volkoff ’09 who "emphasizes the value of having an ROTC program at a university like Harvard: “It’s a means for people to put a face with the armed services.”" Efi Massasa ’09 said "Even though all students don’t serve, it is important they interact with people who did so they will be able to shape their own opinions about military service."
March 2007 Military Officer article "ROTC at Harvard: One Man's Experience" by Jeffrey Race '65. Note: Race, a member of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, describes how his service in Vietnam led to his writing the book "War Comes to Long An", about which a White House staffer said "A lot of people are alive today who would be dead if you had not written that book."
21 March 2007 Harvard Crimson article "Miss Bad-Ass". Note: Harvard's student newspaper profiles Shawna L. Sinnott ’10, the only female from Harvard in the Marine Corps branch of the Navy ROTC. Sinnott has competed in several beauty pageants, and observes “You can prepare as much as you want, but it’s not like the Corps where you can just train and see an improvement. You can work as hard as you want but in the end, it’s still about people’s opinions.”
10 April 2007 Harvard Crimson article "Guns n' Roses: Freshman in Navy ROTC takes home 'Miss Boston' crown". Note: Shawna L. Sinnott ’10 showed it is possible to be a Harvard student, a US Marine in training, and a beauty queen, all in one person. "Pageants are judged based on poise, intelligence, fitness, and confidence, which are all the exact qualities we are looking for in an officer, especially in the Marine Corps," Sinnott said. She placed heavy emphasis on her platform issue of Veterans Affairs, which was the topic of her on-stage question.
18 April 2007 Harvard Crimson article " Here from Over There: Harvard's military veterans look like normal students, but their identity as soldiers rarely fades away". Note: Seth W. Moulton ’01, a Marine Reservist who has been accepted to do graduate work at Harvard, said "I’m shocked at how disconnected Harvard students are from the war, and I’m shocked because these people are not that different from the young Americans fighting and dying overseas".
18 April 2007 Harvard Crimson article "Student Soldiers: ROTC's Challenge". Note: Harvard ROTC students describe why they have chosen military service.
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 Harvard Crimson article "Bush Commissions Dunsterite". Note: Erik Sand '07 said “Harvard has a great tradition of involvement with armed forces, and it’s important to both the University and country that the tradition be renewed, but if change doesn’t happen, we’ll still keep doing what we’re doing.”
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."
6 June 2007 Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2007.
6 June 2007 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2007 by Stephen Rosen, Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs at Harvard.
6 June 2007 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2007 by LTC Leo McGonagle, Professor of Military Science at MIT.
7 June 2007 Harvard University Gazette article "Eleven elevated to officer: ROTC proudly celebrates commissions". Note: The father of Ensign Donald Coates '07 said of his son’s choice to enter the military "This wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I’m proud that he’s achieved what he wanted to. He had to get up at 7 a.m. to take the train down to MIT while his roommates were still sleeping."
8 June 2007 Wall Street Journal editorial "Faustian Bargain". Note: The Journal notes that former Harvard president Lawrence Summers spoke at the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony every year of his presidency, yet this year neither acting president Derek Bok nor president-elect Drew Gilpin Faust accepted invitations to attend. "Faculties now say they object to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays, but the anti-ROTC hostility seems more owing to the sentiments of the "antiwar" movement and other ideological academic causes. Chastened by Mr. Summers's toppling, Ms. Faust is no doubt wary of upsetting this constituency, if she is not a part of it herself."
8 June 2007 Video "MIT Army ROTC Year in Review '06-'07".
14 June 2007 Boston Globe Op-Ed column "The patriot and the Harvard president" by Brian Wright O'Connor '78. Note: O'Connor recounts "an example of the political confrontation needed to allow every patriot to serve in uniform". Charles V. "Chuck" DePriest '77 "marched into Massachusetts Hall and sat in Derek Bok's outer office until the Harvard president had no choice but to see him." President Bok arranged for Harvard to cash DePriest's ROTC scholarship check, but kept the ROTC program off campus and denied credit for ROTC courses taken at MIT, despite the cross-registration agreement with MIT. However, as Steven Peck '79 related to Advocates for ROTC, DePriest's actions were only the first step towards allowing "every patriot to serve in uniform". "DePriest was allowed to enroll secretly", relates Peck. "While he was enrolled I was told cross registration couldn't be allowed" but after Peck "found out half way through the year they let him in" and protested, Peck became the second person to enroll in ROTC, and through these efforts, cross-registering in ROTC at MIT became open to all Harvard students.
22 June 2007 Harvard Crimson article "After Harvard Leaders' Absence, ROTC Supporters Fear Return to Icy Relations: Wall Street Journal, student Republicans criticize Bok, Faust for failing to speak at commissioning ceremony". Note: Former President Lawrence Summers commented that while one can "disagree passionately with the elected officials who bear responsibility for military policies on issues ranging from the war in Iraq to gays in the military," these concerns are not sufficient "not to support those who commit themselves to the defense of our country." The article referred to the text of Prof. Rosen's speech as being on "ROTC's Web site"; actually it is here.
July 2007 Harvard Magazine article "Warriors". Note: Harvard's alumni magazine covered the annual ROTC Commissioning and noted "Lawrence H. Summers spoke at the event in each of his years as president, but President Derek Bok did not attend."
6 July 2007 Boston Globe article "NU dismissing faculty without advanced degrees". Note: This article about Northeastern University provides context for the concern among academics about credentials of ROTC faculty. The article describes "a national trend" to have faculty with higher degrees and research experience. Although this seems to run afoul of the provisions about faculty appointments for ROTC professors in the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964, there may be a workaround to this problem. The Globe article describes how after a communication studies faculty member was fired and students protested, she was "rehired for her previous lecturer position through Northeastern's School of Professional and Continuing Studies, which does not have the same restrictions on credentials as the regular undergraduate programs". Harvard's Kennedy School of Government is another example of having non-traditional faculty appointments for people with government or media experience. The Kennedy School's National Security Program, which has retired military leaders as faculty, may be a good home for Harvard ROTC faculty appointments.
11 July 2007 New York Sun editorial "Speaking Veritas to Harvard". Note: The Sun quotes from the remarks by Prof. Stephen Rosen at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony and notes that Rosen will serve as the senior defense adviser in the Giuliani campaign.
20 July 2007 Marine Corps News article "MECEP student spent five years in Corps before returning to Harvard". Note: Talya C. Havice left Harvard Colleges after one year, served in the Marines, and came back to finish her degree.
20 July 2007 Harvard Crimson "postcard" "There Once Was a Base…" by Reva P. Minkoff '08. Note: A Crimson editor is housed on a military base while working at Google and the experience of having soldiers around her gets her "to think differently about the military and military life".
22 July 2007 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award 2007. Note: Harvard Navy ROTC graduate Danielle Thiriot '07 zoomed into the sky on two flights in vintage east-block aircraft as winner of the 2007 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award.
7 September 2007 ROTC Cadets Get Petraeus Visit at Fort Benning Ceremonies.
17 September 2007 Harvard Crimson editorial "A Laudable Battle: The University should not shy away from military scholarship". Note: The editors of Harvard's student newspaper observe "For all our devotion to the values of academia, we hardly study the war in Iraq and its ramifications .... Since the social uprisings of the late sixties, Harvard has distanced itself from the military. The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was banished from Harvard in 1969, the same year as the student takeover of University Hall to protest the Vietnam War. With it went the close ties between Harvard and the military that defined the institution during World War II and even into the Kennedy administration. While bringing ROTC back to campus should not be conflated with studying war, both stem from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ continuing apathy toward a more comprehensive study of national security ... Harvard has a handful of war scholars and courses directly related to the subject. But the topic is so vast and important to our nation’s immediate and long-term future that we believe Harvard—and academia at large—should devote more resources to its study and teaching. Otherwise, the University will have abdicated an important part of its mission—to educate wise and informed citizens." A dissenting opinion lists many courses about war at Harvard and suggests: "If you intend to study war as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon, Harvard can ably meet your needs. But if you’re still curious about how best to crush the infidels, then take the T to MIT, or better yet, the train to West Point."
18 September 2007 New York Sun editorial "Faust's First Move". Note: The Sun notes the support for ROTC by former Harvard president Lawrence Summers and suggests about incoming president Drew Faust that "one of the things people will be watching for her to say" when she is installed as president is "some words about the responsibilities of a university to its country in a war against an enemy determined not only to destroy Israel but also the rest of Western civilization".
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."
29 September 2007 Boston Globe article "On campus & in training: As the Iraq war continues, it's a challenging time for area ROTC students". Note: The article describes experiences of ROTC students in the Boston area, including a protest by the City of Cambridge about military exercises.
29 September 2007 Boston Globe article "Controversy at Harvard". Note: The Globe interviewed LTC Leo McGonagle, Professor of Military Science at MIT, who said "Would I love to see Harvard allow ROTC on campus? Absolutely. But if that's not going to happen in the short term, that's OK because Harvard is producing some fantastic Army officers right now." The numbers given in the article for Harvard students are only for the Army program; others are in similar Air Force and Navy programs. The Globe misquoted Paul Mawn, chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, about the administrative fees paid to MIT. Those expenses are paid by an independent privately managed fund, established in 1995, not connected to Advocates for Harvard ROTC.
11 October 2007 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC Guard To Greet Faust". Note: At the request of Harvard ROTC students, Harvard President Drew Faust agreed to a color guard of ROTC students at her inauguration. President Faust also said that she would consider attending next year’s commissioning ceremony if she were invited.
15 October 2007 Minding the Campus blog item "The ROTC Is Not Invited At Harvard" by Anthony Paletta. Note: The item points out that recent appearances by Harvard ROTC students at Harvard events have come as a result of requests by the students.
18 October 2007 Morning Prayer remarks by Prof. Harry Lewis at Harvard. Note: The former dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences quotes from Romans 14:13 "that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way" and opines on Harvard's gay-rights concerns about ROTC "I don’t think Harvard’s stance on ROTC is morally tenable. We should not attempt to remove the barriers facing some of our students by placing stumbling blocks in the path of others... The issue is not bringing an ROTC unit to Harvard. Units are merging today, not splitting. We should normalize Harvard’s relations with MIT ROTC. Harvard ought to pay its bills to MIT directly. It ought to bus our ROTC students as it buses our volleyball teams."
November 2007 Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) article "The Few. The Proud. The (Harvard???) Marines". Note: Veterans at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School report no hostility at Harvard these days - just a mixture of appreciation, curiosity and indifference. "Harvard’s Marines—and many other recent veterans as well—say they feel a special obligation to try to bridge the civilian-military divide. “I’m the only Marine in my [class] section, and I take very seriously my obligation that I may be the only Marine people meet,” Captain [Maura] Sullivan says." See also the December letter by Owen West '91 commenting on this issue from the perspective of ROTC. Reprinted from Proceedings with permission; Copyright © 2007 U.S. Naval Institute www.usni.org.
14 November 2007 Harvard Crimson Op-Ed "Stumbling Blocks" by Harry R. Lewis ’68. Note: A member of the Steering Committee of Advocates for Harvard ROTC and former dean of Harvard college notes the appearance of an ROTC color guard at the inauguration of Harvard president Drew Faust, writes "I don’t think Harvard’s stance on ROTC is morally tenable. We should not attempt to remove the barriers facing some of our students by placing stumbling blocks in the path of others. To quote Democratic Congressman Barney Frank ’61 (Massachusetts), speaking courageously some weeks ago on a related matter, “idealism that is empowered by pragmatism is the way in which we make progress.”"
December 2007 Proceedings (U.S. Naval Institute) letter in response to "The Few. The Proud. The (Harvard???) Marines" by Owen West '91. Note: West takes issue with the statement in the original article that Naval ROTC midshipmen "are as much at home at Harvard" as veterans who are graduate students. He points out that the faculty has a "clear disdain" of ROTC and that there was a similar attitude from the university administration except during the term of President Summers. Reprinted from Proceedings with permission; Copyright © 2007 U.S. Naval Institute www.usni.org.
22 December 2007 New York Times article "Scholars and the Military Share a Foxhole, Uneasily". Note: At a conference about counterinsurgency co-sponsored by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, "Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq, was impressed with what he heard ... and on the spot began assembling a team to revise the doctrine." As recounted in an article in the US Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine, Harvard's Kennedy School is a part of the university that is quite receptive to the military.

2008:

11 January 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Faust Faces Undergrads at UC Meeting". Note: Harvard President Drew Faust was asked "whether she will attend the ROTC commissioning ceremony" in June and the article characterized her response as "unclear". The ambiguity may relate to arrangements not being finalized yet, but since December there have been indications that Faust had agreed in principle to attend the ceremony.
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.
7 March 2008 Comments at the MIT ROTC Tri-Service Military Ball, Cambridge, MA "Trustworthy Leaders of Character: Leading Foremost by WHO you ARE" by Dr. Don M. Snider.
18 March 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Will ROTC Return? Years after program's banishment from Harvard, debate over ROTC's future continues". Note: The Harvard Republican Club "approached the Harvard Democrats, with a proposal aimed at addressing “areas in which Harvard falls short of providing an environment of respect and encouragement of [its ROTC cadets’] service.” The proposal’s seven original points were vetted down to four, with two recommendations—one to allow recognition of ROTC coursework on the Harvard transcript, another to encourage a faculty resolution to bring ROTC back on campus upon the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—narrowly passing in an open vote, according to Harvard Democrats President Jarret A. Zafran ’09." Harvard ROTC Association president Joseph M. Kristol ’09 described a proposal for "rewording the description of ROTC in the student handbook, which calls the program “inconsistent with Harvard’s values,” and paying for cross-registration at MIT."
18 March 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Discipline, The ROTC Way: For Harvard's burgeoning officers, training is meant to resonate well beyond the classroom". Note: Harvard students make up the largest university contingent in the Army ROTC unit based at MIT, and numbers have not decreased despite the Iraq war and the availability of other generous university financial aid.
18 March 2008 Harvard Crimson article "A Crimson Call of Duty: Student Soldiers". Note: Harvard ROTC graduates and other Harvard veterans describe their experiences in Iraq. Joseph S. Linhart ’03 "said that people may consider Harvard incompatible with the military—that those who enter the service are “wasting their talent.” But he characterized the institution-building process as “academic,” adding that people often think of the military as a “bunch of dumb linemen running into each other,” when in fact, “it’s a very cerebral and complicated game.” ... Peter H. Brooks ’06, who is still in Iraq with the Marines, wrote in an e-mail that at this point in the war, much of the military experience is in the peacekeeping and humanitarian realms, requiring some political and cultural sensitivity that Harvard has helped him gain.""
25 March 2008 Boston Globe Op-ed "A separate and unequal exercise" by Harry Lewis '68 PhD '74. Note: The former dean of Harvard College, a member of the Steering Committee of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, argues that it is inconsistent for Harvard to institute female-only gym hours to accommodate the desire for sexual privacy of Muslim students but ban ROTC because of the federal "don't ask, don't tell" law. His point is particularly relevant because one of the main motivations for the "don't ask, don't tell" law was to protect the sexual privacy of soldiers in shared living quarters.
28 March 2008 Department of Defense final rule "Military Recruiting and Reserve Officer Training Corps Program Access to Institutions of Higher Education". Note: These regulations implement the 2005 changes to the Solomon Amendment. It specifies that almost all federal contracts and grants are prohibited to a school whose students "cannot obtain permission from a covered school to participate, or are effectively prevented from participating, in a unit of the Senior ROTC at another institution of higher education." Unlike the provision about establishing ROTC units, this provision is not dependent on a request by the Secretary of Defense. This provision calls into question Harvard's refusal to pay the ~$185,000 in fees for its students taking ROTC courses at MIT. Under a 1995 compromise the fees are paid for by Harvard alumni through a secretive trust arranged by Harvard, but if such funds are not maintained Harvard may need to reassess the 1995 decision.
18 April 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Faust To Attend ROTC Event". Note: "University President Drew G. Faust will attend this year’s Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) commissioning ceremony during Commencement, continuing a new precedent set by her predecessor Lawrence H. Summers." According to a spokesman Faust will be “part of the program”, but it was unclear whether she will be following Summers' tradition of speaking at the event.
18 April 2008 First Army Helicopters at Harvard. Note: Two Army Black Hawk helicopters landed at Harvard's Soldiers Field to airlift ROTC cadets of the Paul Revere Battalion to their training destination at Ft. Devens.
19 April 2008 The White Rhino Report Blog item "Black Hawk Up - History Made at Harvard". Note: Coverage of the landing of the First Army Helicopters at Harvard.
23 April 2008 Harvard Crimson editorial "Faust's Prerogative: Harvard should bring back ROTC, but not before the end of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”". Note: The Crimson commends President Drew Faust for agreeing to be part of the ROTC Commissioning Ceremony in June, and calls for the restoration of ROTC if the "Don't ask, don't tell" law is "ended". It also suggests "When President Faust speaks at the commissioning ceremony this June, we hope she will seize on this important moment—a moment in which she will likely have the ear of high-ranking military officials as well as media—to draw attention to the disgusting nature of this policy. Faust ought to specifically criticize “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and call for it to end."
29 April 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Dems and Republicans Unite on ROTC Bill". Note: The undergraduate council urged Harvard to list on transcripts ROTC courses taken at MIT, even though no credit is given. The council also urged continuation of the annual ROTC Commissioning ceremony, and the Crimson reports that President Faust "has said that she will be speaking at the commissioning ceremony this June". The Crimson also refers to Andrew D. Fine ’09 as saying that "Harvard should pressure the military to drop the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy", but DADT is a federal law that can only be changed by Congress.
30 April 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Faust To Address ROTC Cadets". Note: President Faust will speak at ROTC Commissioning in June and said that "while she had not yet written her speech, she planned to say that she hoped “every Harvard student had the opportunity to serve in the military.” "
2 May 2008 Harvard Crimson column "Why Harvard Hates America: Faust is right to rain on ROTC’s parade" by Adam Goldenberg ’08. Note: Goldenberg asserts that ROTC "doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun" and is "glory-free self-sacrifice", ironically appearing the same day as an article about ROTC students flying over Harvard in helicopters. Goldenberg also writes that "military officers now being educated at Harvard and elsewhere should rightly have their service tinted by the discrimination of DADT, at their commissioning and elsewhere."
2 May 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Riding With the Paul Revere Battalion: ROTC experience includes helicopter ride-along and Meals Read to Eat". Note: "We took off slowly, flying over the intramural fields and crossing the river, past undergraduate Houses and Memorial Hall on our way out of Cambridge." See also photos here.
5 May 2008 Harvard Crimson column "Honoring Their Service: Campus leftists should not play politics with ROTC" by Christopher B. Lacaria ’09. Note: "DADT has been hotly debated for quite some time, both on campus and in American society at large. No political position—no tacit countenancing of DADT—would be implied were President Faust not to speak of the matter."
20 May 2008 Wall Street Journal column "Why Harvard Harasses the Military" by William McGurin. Note: McGurin wrote that Harvard President Faust speaking about the "Don't ask, don't tell" law at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony on 4 June would mean for the ROTC students that "in their first moments as new officers, they will be told by the leader of their university that they serve an institution that isn't, well, quite worthy of Harvard." See letters on 31 May.
26 May 2008 Wall Street Journal "Journal Editorial Report". Editorial page editor Paul Gigot, columnist Bill McGurn and deputy Taste page editor Naomi Schaefer Riley discuss the upcoming Harvard ROTC Commissioning ceremony. Speaking of Harvard President Drew Faust, Riley said "I think someone should call her bluff. Does she really want a lot of more Harvard students taking up arms? I would be surprised if she sort of acknowledged that."
31 May 2008 Wall Street Journal letters about William McGurin 20 May column "Why Harvard Harasses the Military". Note: Anthony K. Obst '67, an ROTC graduate and father of ROTC graduate Larry Obst '01, notes that "the military has created regional ROTC centers which service students from many schools, including Harvard. So it's unlikely that the military will want to return to its earlier more expensive and manpower intensive model for ROTC units, and return to Harvard's campus."
1 June 2008 Harvard Crimson article "At Harvard ROTC Event, Faust Still Plans To Criticize 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': 'Wait to see what the speech sounds like,' Faust says of much-watched ROTC commissioning address". Note: Speaking of the ROTC students, Faust told the Crimson "I have deep respect for these students and I want to express my respect for them... But I also want to make clear that I wish all students had the same opportunity, the same right to serve". The initial version of the story gave the day of ROTC Commissioning incorrectly; it is Wednesday 4 June. Also, "don't ask, don't tell", is a federal law, not "the military's policy".
3 June 2008 Harvard Crimson Op-ed "Hate the Policy, Not the Program" by Derek Flanzraich ’10. Note: Flanzraich writes: "The Faculty of Arts and Sciences should pass a resolution reversing their position and welcome ROTC back to Harvard’s campus. At the same time, they must also push every other Ivy League University to join them in issuing a statement publicly condemning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”". He also states that military recruiting on camps is banned. Although this was true in recent years, Harvard reversed its ban shortly after the 6 March 2006 Supreme Court Decision in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. (No. 04-1152), which upheld the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment tying federal funding to permitting military recruiting and ROTC.
4 June 2008 "Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008".
4 June 2008 "Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony" by Harvard President Drew Faust. Note: President Faust told the ROTC graduates "I celebrate you on this important day... I wish that there were more of you". She spoke of the history of universities and the military in advancing equality and participation and said, without giving specifics, "These are principles we must continue to honor and strive to extend". Audio here.
4 June 2008 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008 by LTC Leo McGonagle, Professor of Military Leadership at MIT and leader of the Army ROTC program for Harvard students.
4 June 2008 Remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2008 by LT General Tad Oelstrom, USAF, (Ret), Director of the National Security Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
4 June 2008 Harvard University Gazette article "Five graduate to service: Faust expresses ‘profound appreciation’ for ROTC grads".
5 June 2008 Harvard Crimson article "In ROTC Address, Faust Quietly Criticizes 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'". Note: The Crimson focuses on President Faust's line "I wish that there were more of you" as being about inclusion of gay students in ROTC. However, it also echoed words of Wall Street Journal editor Naomi Schaefer Riley who asked about Faust "Does she really want a lot of more Harvard students taking up arms? I would be surprised if she sort of acknowledged that."
5 June 2008 Boston Globe article "Faust criticizes military's ban on gays". Note: The Globe observed that "Faust unmistakably conveyed yesterday that her opposition in no way diminished her admiration for military service". See letter on 11 June.
5 June 2008 New York Sun column "Harvard President Salutes Newly Commissioned Military Officers: 'I wish that there were more of you' Faust Tells Five" by Set Gitell. Note: Gitell writes: "For a little less than a hour yesterday Harvard dedicated itself to honoring those graduates who have opted to serve America as members of the military... A patriotic address from the university's president, Drew Gilpin Faust, punctuated the ceremony... Some feared before the speech that she might engage in a full-throated denunciation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Her comments came in a somewhat vague, nuanced, and respectful fashion that left Harvard's most passionate advocates of military service happy."
7 June 2008 Weekly Standard column "The Few, the Proud: Harvard ROTC's five new officers" by Dean Barnett '89. Note: Barnett considers President Faust's statement about ROTC graduates "I wish that there were more of you", juxtaposed with an allusion to advancing gay rights, and notes that "taking her words at face value, one wonders whether she truly anticipates that the removal of the "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy would trigger greater participation. Given the percentage of heterosexual students who join ROTC, one would mathematically project the number of homosexual participants to be zero unless Harvard's gay population has a greater eagerness for ROTC participation than the straight population."
8 June 2008 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award 2008. Note: Michael J. Arth 08 took flights in two vintage east-block aircraft as winner of the 2008 Harvard ROTC Aviation Award.
11 June 2008 Boston Globe letter "Harvard and the ROTC" by Wayne L. Johnson. Note: Responding to a 5 June Boston Globe article "Faust criticizes military's ban on gays", a retired Navy commander with the Judge Advocate General's Corps points out that Faust did not explicitly mention gays and that the ban on open homosexuality in the military is federal law, not military policy.
September 2008 Harvard Magazine letters "Matters Military" by Note: Commenting on the absence of veterans among those with Harvard leadership positions, Henry Nuzum ’99 observes "Ivy Tower prefers perfect abstinence to uncertain sway over an imperfect fight", and suggests for Board of Overseers and Harvard Alumni Association elections "Consider electing a vet or two in the future, who might eventually lead a re-integration of ROTC back on campus."
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". See response letter on 22 October.
22 October 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Obama Win Could End ROTC Battle". Note: A Harvard Crimson news analysis suggests that "if Obama takes office on Jan. 20 and succeeds in rolling back the policy, Harvard would see its main reason for banning ROTC disappear."
22 October 2008 Harvard Crimson letter "Formally Recognize ROTC" by Paul E. Mawn '63. Note: The Chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC responds to a 2 October article and makes clear the group's position that the Harvard Corporation should "formerly recognize the ROTC programs which provide valuable leadership training to Harvard cadets and midshipmen. Such formal recognition should lead to greater participation of Harvard students in ROTC programs and the eventual physical return of the ROTC units to the Harvard campus."
November 2008 Harvard Magazine article "Coming Out at Harvard". Note: During a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, "Some attendees expressed dismay at the extent to which the University administration has thawed toward ROTC".
11 November 2008 Marquette Tribune article "ROTC wants in at Harvard: School's funding of group ended in '92". Note: "When ROTC was thrown off Harvard's campus around 1970, it was still recognized by the school, with scholarship money allocated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Harvard students could join ROTC there. When it was officially derecognized in 1992, the money was no longer allocated to MIT. "I think it's blatantly illegal," [Paul] Mawn [chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC] said. "Since '92 they just collected the money and kept it entirely themselves." A second statement in the article about ROTC being "thrown off campus" in 1992 is an error by the newspaper. ROTC was already off campus; in 1992 a university committee recommended restrictions on ROTC-related payments to MIT. Also, Mawn did not call for any changes in yearbook policy since these were achieved already during the Summers administration.
13 November 2008 Harvard Crimson article "Harvard Veterans Tell Stories of War: In recognition of Veteran's Day, Harvard ROTC association hosts four former military officers". Note: One of the officers, Seth W. Moulton ’01, said “When you come from a place like Harvard, you have some advantages but some handicaps... They respect the hell out of you, but they are concerned you have no common sense”. (The photo caption referring to Advocates for Harvard ROTC is an error, brought to the attention of the Crimson).
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. "

2009

3 February 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Faust Addresses UC Meeting". Note: Harvard's President told the Undergraduate Council that “To get official recognition, a group cannot have any exclusionary rules ... I look forward to the day when we can change our position on ROTC on campus”.
17 February 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Petraeus To Address ROTC Commissioning Ceremonies at Harvard, MIT: Former top U.S. general in Iraq will speak to cadets in early June". Note: The article asserts that "The Harvard commissioning ceremony, set for June 3, has generally not drawn significant interest in years past". This is a fair description of the size of the local audience, but the event is much noticed nationally, as indicated by coverage in the New York Times (here) and Wall Street Journal (here, here, here and here).
25 February 2009 Boston Globe column "Free speech at Harvard" by Scot Lehigh. Note: Harvey Silverglate HLS '67 and Robert Freedman '62 are running as petition candidates for Harvard's Board of Overseers. "Both men think Harvard should allow the Reserve Officers Training Corps back on campus on the grounds of student choice."
3 - 4 April 2009 conference "Ivies and the Military: Toward Reconciliation". Note: The conference was organized by Lukas Filler and Raz Mason, students at Harvard Divinity School. Videos of many presentations are online.
7 April 2009 Huffington Post column "Ivies and the Military -- Toward Reconciliation (Harvard Administration Blows an Opportunity)" by Frank Schaeffer. Note: Schaeffer reports on the "Ivies and the Military -- Toward Reconciliation" conference at Harvard Divinity School and observes: "The consensus of our diverse panel was that neither the military nor the Ivies have the luxury of continuing to ignore - let alone disdain -- each other. Our military desperately needs highly educated leaders in this complex interconnected world, and our top schools desperately need an infusion of selfless values.... The lesson the Ivy League teaches has become: I am the most important person in any room. The lesson the United States military teaches is: the person standing next to me is more important than I am."
8 April 2009 Wall Street Journal op-ed "Harvard and the Marines: Why not give our officers the best education?" by Joseph Kristol and Daniel West. Note: Two graduating Harvard students note that "Harvard today happily pays for future bankers to take accounting courses at MIT, but refuses to pay for aspiring military officers who take ROTC courses." They call upon Harvard's President Drew Faust to welcome ROTC back to Harvard "Perhaps she will be inspired to show this leadership as she joins Gen. David Petraeus in recognizing the ROTC graduates at our commissioning ceremony in June." See letters on 14 April.
9 April 2009 Boston Globe op-ed "Ivies and military could learn a lot from each other" by Frank Schaeffer. Note: Schaeffer reports on the "Ivies and the Military -- Toward Reconciliation" conference at Harvard Divinity School and observes that "the military needs highly educated leaders in this complex interconnected world. And the top schools need an infusion of selfless morality". See 14 April letter and letter.
9 April 2009 Boston Herald column "Harvard won’t surrender its hypocrisy" by Michael Graham. Note: Graham contrasts Harvard's hosting of foreign leaders involved in terrorism to its unwillingness to pay overhead costs for ROTC courses that Harvard students take at MIT.
12 April 2009 MetroWest Daily News column "Harvard's ROTC pioneer" by Brian W. O'Connor '78. Note: O'Connor describes how Charles V. DePriest '77 became the first Harvard student to do ROTC after the program was terminated in 1969. However, as Steven Peck '79 related to Advocates for ROTC, DePriest's actions were only the first step towards allowing Harvard students to do ROTC. "DePriest was allowed to enroll secretly", relates Peck. "While he was enrolled I was told cross registration couldn't be allowed" but after Peck "found out half way through the year they let him in" and protested, Peck became the second person to enroll in ROTC, and through these efforts, cross-registering in ROTC at MIT became open to all Harvard students.
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."
14 April 2009 Wall Street Journal letters "Harvard's Anti-ROTC Policy Punishes the Wrong Group". Note: Responding to the 8 April article by Joseph Kristol and Daniel West, the letters call on Harvard not to punish the military for the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
14 April 2009 Boston Globe letter "Perhaps another barrier to campus entry" by Janna Jackson. Note: Responding to Frank Schaeffer's 9 April op-ed, Jackson protests the lack of mention of the "Don' ask, don't tell" law (though Schaffer mentions that in the longer version of his exposition on the Huffington Post).
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).
20 April 2009 Washington Times article "Reconciling the Ivies and the military: Conferees aim to find common ground". Note: The article describes the "Ivies and the Military -- Toward Reconciliation" conference at Harvard Divinity School and quotes Harvard professor Diane Moore as calling for universities and the military to get to know each other better, saying "My own education, partially here at Harvard, in the entitlement of an Ivy League institution, gave me an arrogance that I wish had been more challenged while I was here".
21 April 2009 Washington Times editorial "The long crimson line". Note: The Times salutes the upcoming appearance of General David Petraeus at Harvard's ROTC commissioning ceremony and notes the irony that otherwise at Harvard "ROTC students have been relegated to second-class status, banished from the campus in the name of diversity."
21 April 2009 Boston Globe op-ed "Leadership, Petraeus style" by Paula D. Broadwell. Note: "In paying tribute to Harvard veterans at a Kennedy School Forum tonight, General David H. Petraeus will underline the importance of adaptive leaders in today's complex national security environment." He promotes a style reminiscent of academics, "a "flatter" hierarchical structure that empowers subordinate leaders to think outside the box, take initiative, challenge assumptions, and even question authority".
21 April 2009 Appearance by General David Petraeus at Harvard's Kennedy School Forum. Note: He illustrated his model of adaptive leadership by citing a sign he saw at an outpost, reading “In the absence of guidance or orders, figure out what they should have been and execute aggressively!”
21 April 2009 Remarks by Maura Sullivan HBS '09 when introducing General David Petraeus at Harvard's Kennedy School.
21 April 2009 Wicked Local Cambridge article "Praise and protest for Petraeus in Cambridge". Note: "Since 1900, 1,200 Harvard graduates have died in military conflicts, said Harvard student and Iraq War veteran Maura Sullivan. Former service members make up 9 percent of the Kennedy School and 5 percent of the business school, she said. To applause, Sullivan suggested Harvard reinstate its ROTC program after the school cut all ties during the Vietnam War."
22 April 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Petraeus Honors Young Veterans". Note: General David Petraeus spoke at a Harvard Kennedy School forum, to an audience at Harvard's Center for Public Leadership, and at a dinner honoring student veterans attending Harvard's Business School, Law School and Kennedy School. At the first two events there was a Harvard ROTC color guard.
22 April 2009 Christian Science Monitor article "Petraeus: What I learned in Iraq, and how it applies to Afghanistan: The US general credited with turning around a bleak war effort spoke yesterday to Harvard students, who forgave the one ‘blemish’ on his record: a PhD from Princeton." Note: The article has a detailed account of General Petraeus' speech at Harvard, and several helpful links, including to Petraeus' PhD thesis. As of the day of the article, one link, to a graph of the casualties in Iraq, is an earlier version of the one shown in the talk.
22 April 2009 Survey on ROTC by the Harvard Republican Club. Note: This contains the text of the questions of the survey sent by email to all Harvard undergraduates on 22 to 23 April.
23 April 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Students Push for ROTC Recognition". Note: The students were asking for Harvard to be more supportive of ROTC, including reforming the current system under which the cross-registration fees for courses at MIT are paid by the autonomous alumni-funded "Friends of Harvard ROTC Trust", an arrangement that former-president Lawrence Summers described as "uncomfortable" and "unorthodox".
24 April 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Panel Discusses ROTC Challenges". Note: "The students also cited several other concerns about Harvard’s refusal to recognize ROTC, including the fact that Harvard revokes the financial aid offers for students who accept ROTC scholarships. Panelist Christi E. Morrissey ’10 said that this policy has forced some students to leave ROTC due to financial considerations." See letter on 7 May.
27 April 2009 Harvard Crimson editorial "Support Service: The University can take steps to better support ROTC participation". Note: Harvard's student newspaper recommends that "the University should make it easier for ROTC students to cross-register at MIT by covering cross-registration fees and allowing military-science courses to appear on transcripts. Harvard should also improve financial-aid policy so that ROTC grants do not preclude students from receiving Harvard funds."
29 April 2009 Harvard Kennedy School Citizen article "Reinstating the ROTC at Harvard". Note: Kennedy School Student Government President Ben Polk said "I firmly believe that Harvard should reinstate ROTC. There is no more honorable form of public service than the military, and the students that are brave enough to put their lives on the line deserve Harvard’s unequivocal support."
3 May 2009 Boston Globe article "Faust wrote to authorities". Note: Harvard President Drew Faust "sent a sharply worded letter last month to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates criticizing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and protesting the discharge of Army Captain Anthony Woods, a 2008 Harvard Kennedy School graduate and a gay Iraq War veteran." He was "discharged in December after coming out to his commanding officers. He is now running for Congress".
7 May 2009 Politics Daily article "Is Harvard Smart Enough to Listen to its Students?" Note: The article ponders the implications of an email survey sent by the Harvard Republican Club to all undergraduates in which "62 percent said they believed Harvard should "officially recognize" ROTC on their campus".
7 May 2009 Harvard Crimson letter "The Money Surrounding ROTC" by Sally Donahue. Note: Responding to a 24 April news story, the director of financial aid at Harvard College explains that Harvard's denial of financial aid to many students receiving ROTC scholarships is application of a policy that extends to "all other sources of outside awards".
8 May 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Poll Results Favor ROTC Recognition". Note: The email survey sent by the Harvard Republican Club to all undergraduates found that 62% of respondents favored Harvard recognition of ROTC. This result "could help facilitate transfer of course credit for ROTC classes taken at MIT, allow financial support from Harvard for cross-registration, and mean the removal of language in the student handbook that says military and ROTC policies excluding openly gay people are “inconsistent with Harvard’s values.”" In contrast to a 2008 survey at Columbia, where the outcome was split, the Harvard survey did not focus on establishing an ROTC program on campus.
13 May 2009 Harvard Crimson editorial "An Unfounded Claim: Harvard Republican Club’s poll revealed interest, but little more". Note: Discussing the email survey on ROTC by the Harvard Republican Club, the Crimson opines "A substantial self-selection bias and a low response rate show that this poll can tell us very little about opinions towards ROTC on campus".
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.
19 May 2009 CNN item "Banned from Harvard". Note: "Joe Kristol, a graduating senior and marine cadet, says it’s time for Harvard to change. “I think that what we’re looking for is the college to separate the issues and be able to recognize and support ROTC on the one hand; on the other hand do whatever they want to protest policies they may not agree with, but not to punish the students and use them as their tool to make that political statement.”"
20 May 2009 Harvard Crimson op-ed "Morality and Conditional Support" by Jenny Zhang. Note: Zhang argues that the Harvard Republican Club email survey on ROTC should have included an additional option “Yes, I support official recognition, but only after the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”
23 May 2009 CNN video "Harvard University Still Bans 'ROTC' Now For New Reason". Note: CNN interviews ROTC students Joe Kristol '09, Christi Morrissey and Shawna Sinnott (transcript here).
1 June 2009 Harvard Crimson column "Taking The Long Way: After years of discord, will Harvard and the military finally make peace?" by Paras D. Bhayani. Note: A Crimson staff writer observes that "Sometime in the recent past—and perhaps as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks—prevailing non-faculty sentiment at Harvard seems to have shifted strongly in favor of the military."
2 June 2009 Wall Street Journal column "How Hillsdale Beats Harvard: The Ivy school sells out its 'principles.'" by William McGurn. Note: McGurn contrasts Harvard, which excludes ROTC because of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law but permits military recruiting because of the money involved, with Hillsdale College, which gave up federal money rather than be forced to count its students by race and sex. See letter on 20 June.
2 June 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Harvard Sets Tone for Future of ROTC: Ban on ROTC continued despite efforts to establish unofficial campus presence". Note: Following the de-certification of ROTC at Harvard in the late 1960s and the opening up of a cross-town opportunity at MIT in the 1970s, Andrew C. Deardorff ’84 "formed the student club “Friends of ROTC” in 1983. According to Deardorff, the club may have been the first ROTC support group on campus since Harvard broke ties with the armed forces.... opposition groups sprang up in response to the newly approved Friends of ROTC club. The student groups Enemies of ROTC and Opponents of ROTC were approved by the Committee on College Life within two weeks of the approval of the Friends of ROTC. “We were trying to support Harvard’s policy of not having recruiters on campus,” said Jonathan E. Caws-Elwitt ’84, then vice president of the Enemies of ROTC. “We wanted to represent the other perspective that we are against the ROTC presence, and we came up with this stupid name, and I regret the choice of words.”" ROTC commissioning in 1984 was very informal; three graduating Army ROTC students "gathered in front of the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard wearing gray Army uniforms and were commissioned in a small informal ceremony in the presence of two of the MIT program’s officers. [Robert Carey ’84] said he remembers standing in front of the John Harvard statue while Major General Joe [Ambrose] pinned stripes on the young graduates’ uniforms a few hours after an official ceremony had been held at MIT. No Harvard faculty or administrators were present and attendees included only friends and family."
3 June 2009 Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2009
3 June 2009 Remarks at Harvard ROTC Commissioning by GEN David H. Petraeus.
3 June 2009 Harvard University Gazette article "Harvard To Participate in Yellow Ribbon Veterans Education Program". Note: At the Harvard ROTC Commissioning ceremony, President Drew Faust announced that Harvard will provide "substantial assistance" under the Yellow Ribbon Program. It is not clear whether this matches the full ride being provided under this program by Columbia.
3 June 2009 Harvard Law School statement "Harvard Law School will provide tuition for up to twelve veterans next year under federal Yellow Ribbon Program". Note: Harvard Law School will provide up to 12 veterans full tuition and fees under the federal government’s new Yellow Ribbon Program. "Harvard College and the University’s other graduate and professional schools have also agreed to participate in the program, but the Law School’s contribution per student will be the largest."
3 June 2009 Harvard President Drew Faust's remarks at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony.
3 June 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Petraeus Speaks to ROTC Grads". Note: The article discusses Gen. Petraeus' speech and notes of a speech by Harvard's president "Unlike last year, when Faust criticized the military’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”—which bars openly gay people from service and has been cited in recent years as the reason ROTC remains off campus—Faust did not comment on the controversial policy yesterday."
3 June 2009 Harvard University Gazette article "At ROTC commissioning, Faust touts idea of ‘soldier-scholar’: Gen. Petraeus offers advice: ‘Stay humble’". Note: The Gazette estimated the crowd as "about 4,000", though the Boston Herald's estimate was "about 500".
3 June 2009 Harvard Magazine article "Leadership Tips from a "Soldier Scholar"". Note: "as the audience waited for the ceremony to begin, the Advocates for Harvard ROTC distributed a newsletter reaffirming their goals: formal recognition of ROTC by the Harvard Corporation; a tri-service ROTC office annex on campus; and increased participation of Harvard undergraduates in ROTC."
3 June 2009 Video: General Petraeus at Harvard ROTC.
3 June 2009 Video 2009 ROTC Commissioning Ceremony - President Drew Faust.
3 June 2009 Remarks at Harvard ROTC Commissioning by Darnell Whitt '59.
4 June 2009 Boston Herald article "Gen. David H. Petraeus encourages Harvard ROTC grads". Note: The article describes Gen. Petraeus' speech and relates that "retired Navy Capt. Darnell N. Whitt II, class of 1959, in his introduction, called on Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust and Petraeus to work together to restore ROTC programs at Ivy League universities such as Harvard, which halted ROTC in the 1960s." The Herald estimated the crowd as "about 500", though the Harvard University Gazette's estimate was "about 4,000".
4 June 2009 Forward Movement blog item "10-Minute Leadership Course" by Jules Crittenden. Note: A Boston Herald reporter and blogger describes Harvard ROTC Commissioning and the high points of Gen. Petraeus' speech.
20 June 2009 Wall Street Journal letter "This Yellow Ribbon Is a Real Benefit" by Eric Powell. Note: Responding to a 2 June article about ROTC and Harvard, Powell notes that elite universities that distance themselves from ROTC have embraced the Yellow Ribbon Program under which they provide financial support to veterans that is matched by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
13 August 2009 Washington Times article "Harvard, ROTC face off: Poll finds students back end to '69 ban". Note: Joe Kristol '09 said "Harvard will pay for my non-ROTC roommate to take accounting, a course obviously intended for professional training, but not for me to take naval science, which I think is ... important for my professional training". The article also cites a poll result favoring ROTC; the poll was carried out by the Harvard Republican Club. The article also includes photos of Advocates for Harvard ROTC chairman Paul Mawn with Gen. David Petraeus (here) and with Medal of Honor Recipient Captain Thomas Hudner (here).
13 August 2009 Edge Boston article "Will Harvard Allow ROTC On Campus Despite DADT?". Note: The article discusses the controversy between including ROTC and gay rights at Harvard and concludes that "America’s steady, if somewhat slow, progress toward full equality for GLTB citizens might one day make the issue moot by erasing the essential conflict between the university’s inclusive policies and the military’s anti-gay ban", referring to the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
23 August 2009 Boston Globe article "Coming home: Kit Parker, 43, a US Army major and Harvard biomedical engineering professor, returns to campus after finishing his second tour in Afghanistan." Note: Parker was asked how he feels about Harvard's ban on ROTC and replied "The dirty work of maintaining a democracy is every American’s business. By not having ROTC, we are not making a statement that we are willing to earn our First Amendment rights that we as academics vigorously consume."
24 September 2009 Harvard Crimson article "ROTC Enrollment Up Nationwide: Harvard numbers stagnant despite national rise". Note: "In 2006, Harvard students made up 15 out of the 49 Army ROTC students participating in the MIT program...This year, Harvard students make up 15 out of 86." The article discusses longstanding issues between Harvard and ROTC, but doesn't explore issues such as financial aid policies that may account for the recent divergence between numbers for Harvard and other colleges.
27 September 2009 Boston Globe article "ROTC’s ranks surge with new recruits: Sense of mission, scholarships drive trend". Note: Army ROTC enrollment is up 26% from the recent low in 2005-6, during the Iraq war. There has been a 75% increase in the number of ROTC scholarships but Norwich University president Richard Schneider, a Vietnam veteran and retired rear admiral in the Coast Guard Reserve said "This isn’t driven by money. It’s driven by a deep commitment to the republic." At Norwich, the number of freshmen with Army ROTC scholarships jumped more than threefold this year, to 87 from 27. Norwich is unusual in that the university has a special fund to pay room and board for ROTC students, in addition to tuition and fees paid for by the military. Nationally, 51 percent of ROTC students now receive federal scholarships.
21 October 2009 Harvard Law School "News Spotlight" "Battle-tested soldiers bring records of service to Harvard Law School". Note: Due to Harvard Law School contributing the maximum amount under the Yellow Ribbon Program and the federal government matching Harvard's contribution, the veterans are getting all tuition and fees fully paid. One of the veterans is Elliott N. Neal '05, who did ROTC as a Harvard undergraduate. No similar "full ride" arrangement is available for pre-service ROTC students.
31 October 2009 Harvard Republican Oasis blog item "FYI: ROTC, NYT, DADT, and HRC". Note: The Harvard Republican Club notes the mention of its email survey about ROTC in the 1 November New York Times article and says the survey "showed that if the issue were put to a vote — as it was at Columbia — ROTC would likely return to campus. The HRC looks forward to co-sponsoring a randomized, scientific poll this year with a partner organization. Any takers?"
November 2009 Harvard Magazine article "Above and Beyond: The University's Medal of Honor recipients are memorialized". Note: The article describes the upcoming ceremony on 11 November at which the plaque honoring Harvard's Medal of Honor recipients will be unveiled, and notes that Harvard has more recipients than any other college other than West Point and Annapolis.
1 November 2009 New York Times article "The R.O.T.C. Dilemma". Note: Discussing Harvard's attitude towards the military and gays, President Drew Faust said “Trying to maintain two values — nondiscrimination and national service — is very complicated ... It has us all tied in knots. There are contradictions. We make these sometimes awkward arguments that are less than pure consistency. Why do we do x and not y? Why do we have the helicopters? Why do I appear at the commissioning? There are enormous complexities and contradictions. We wind up creating compromises that are not philosophically consistent. The way to resolve these inconsistencies is to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military.” The article notes: "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." As a result of such "knots", the number of students in ROTC at elite colleges remains low. Taylor Giffen, a Yale Air Force ROTC cadet who graduated in June, said “They’d see me in uniform, and ask, ‘Hey, are you in a play?’ ”
3 November 2009 Wall Street Journal column "Harvard's Medals of Honor" by William McGurn. Note: Harvard alumni determined that the university has the highest number of Medal of Honor recipients outside the service academies. "For many members of the Harvard community, the medals of honor awarded 10 of our own probably seem as distant and foreign as reports of the Roman legions," says Mr. Mawn, who is the chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, a co-sponsor of next Wednesday's event. "By honoring these people, we hope to bring their stories to life, to awaken awareness for the long Crimson line of service, and to inspire a new generation of Harvard students to answer the call." Within hours of publication of this column, the alumni heard of two other MOH recipients, including BG Charles Edward Phelps, in the Harvard Law School class of 1853. See 27 November letter.
4 November 2009 ACTA's Must-Reads item "Harvard and the military" by David Azerrad. Note: In the context of the 11 November ceremony at Harvard unveiling a plaque to Harvard's Medal of Honor recipients, David Azerrad notes that "continued refusal to permit students to perform military service on campus -- service that helps preserve the cherished freedoms that all members of the campus community enjoy -- seems neither fair nor wise."
8 November 2009 Boston Herald editorial "Harvard’s slow change". Note: The editorial discusses the 11 November ceremony honoring of Harvard's Medal of Honor recipients, and discusses Harvard's ambivalence about ROTC. "We agree that gay men and women should be allowed to serve. And more Harvard-trained officers might be able to provide a little extra push toward that end. Harvard’s governing boards have full authority to set policy on ROTC and they should reverse the prohibition."
10 November 2009 Boston Herald article "Harvard boasts lengthy Honor roll". Note: After publicity of Harvard having many Medal of Honor recipients, families and alumni brought to light 6 more recipients, for a total of 16, more than the known total for any school other than West Point and Annapolis.
10 November 2009 Jules Crittenden "Forward Movement" blog item "Harvard Yard". Note: Crittenden discusses the 11 November ceremony honoring Harvard's 16 Medal of Honor recipients and observes "It is Harvard’s loss, that by refusing to allow ROTC classes on campus for political reasons, the university cuts itself off from that arena of American public life."
11 November 2009 Harvard University and Harvard Veterans Alumni Organization program for A Service Commemorating Medal of Honor Recipients. Note: This is the program that was handed out at the event.
11 November 2009 Veterans Day remarks by Harvard President Drew Faust. Note: Honoring the 16 Medal of Honor recipients she said "We at Harvard are proud to have been a part of the lives of these remarkable Americans, proud to recognize and claim them as our own."
11 November 2009 Associated Press article "Harvard pays tribute to Medal of Honor winners". Note: Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr., appearing at the event to honor Harvard's 16 Medal of Honor recipients, said "How lucky we are as a country to have those who not only believe in the values and ideals this country stands for, but are also willing to fight for them."
12 November 2009 Boston Globe article "Tributes and trepidation". Note: The article describes Harvard's Medal of Honor ceremony and includes photos of the plaque and color guard.
12 November 2009 Boston Herald article "Harvard’s Medal of Honor alumni feted at ceremony". Note: Harvard President Drew Faust said of the university’s role in producing national leaders, “We at Harvard are proud to recognize these heroes and proud to claim them as our own. . . . Let us work to ensure that the wisdom we imbue is not just wisdom of the mind, but wisdom of the heart, the courage that these men represent.”
12 November 2009 Harvard Crimson article "Military Alumni Paid Tribute At Ceremony: Medal of Honor recipients honored at Memorial Church". Note: Benjamin B. Wilcox ’13 said “most Harvard students aren’t aware of the commendable achievements and sacrifices past Harvard students have made for our country in the military... We should be proud of this—it is inspiring.” Andrew P. Howe ’12 said that he was “honored to be part of a university that pays so much tribute to service.”
12 November 2009 Harvard Crimson article "At HBS, Veterans Day Means Thanking Classmates". Note: "In class discussions, [Christina D.] Hruska said, the military voices bring a unique perspective that students with different backgrounds appreciate. “Everybody stops. You could hear a pin drop,” Hruska said of when her fellow veterans speak. “Their experiences are in stark contrast to what everyone else has done.”"
12 November 2009 Harvard Gazette article "A bell tolls for bravery: Ceremony recognizes Harvard’s Medal of Honor heroes". Note: "Faust is the daughter of McGhee Tyson Gilpin, who as a World War II U.S. Army intelligence officer was wounded in 1944 and awarded the Silver Star for valor."
12 November 2009 Harvard Magazine article "A Veterans Day Salute". Note: The article add information on 6 more Medal of Honor recipients whose history came to light after identification of the first 10.
13 November 2009 AlterNet column "The Pentagon's Long-Term Plan to Get Back on Campus" by Michael Schwartz. Note: The writer, a professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, discusses a 1 November New York Times article about ROTC that Schwartz calls "chilling" because it gave voice to possible benefits of an ROTC presence at elite colleges. Schwartz writes that "The most profound distortion is that it fails to mention that the pressure for new ROTC chapters originates in the military itself". However, as university officials will attest, the main pressure comes from students and alumni who think their university should offer opportunities for military service, and from political leaders, notably in recent years Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, while military leaders have generally refrained from getting involved in this controversial issue. Schwartz complains that the NYT article "failed to undertake even rudimentary investigative reporting, which would have revealed this larger context" of supposed pressure by the military and "made sure to interview military leaders, college administrators, faculty who support ROTC". In fact, a core element of the NYT article was an interview with Harvard's president explaining why she is opposed to welcoming ROTC. Schwartz also claims that the military wants ROTC programs so as to "gain routine access to rank-and file students, who can potentially be encouraged to enlist as non-officers, where the real shortage lies." However, recruitment programs for non-officers are run entirely separately from ROTC and such recruitment rarely, if ever, co-locates with ROTC programs.
14 November 2009 Weekly Standard article "Harvard's Warriors: Honoring the Medal of Honor recipients". Note: Jules Crittenden attended the ceremony at Harvard honoring its Medal of Honor recipients and observed "It was like a fleeting glimpse of an alternative world: the greatness of the past and what might be in the future, brought together for a moment at Harvard University last week... Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, a military historian whose father was wounded in combat and decorated for bravery in World War II, stood to pronounce Harvard's own heroes "the finest exemplars of all Harvard students and graduates who have served their country since its earliest days." Despite Faust's praise, the military is not a field in which Harvard encourages its brightest minds to contribute and test themselves... Today, while most of America has embraced the volunteer military that has fought a long, hard war against a proven and persistent threat, Harvard continues to hold ROTC at arm's length."
19 November 2009 Armchair General article "Harvard Remembers Its Distinguished Military Veterans – Without a Fight!" by Caspar W. Weinberger, Jr. Note: Weinberger, son of the late secretary of defense, observes "the University is much more likely now to have a Nobel Peace Prize winner than a distinguished military award. Of course, students might take a cue from their own Teddy Roosevelt who did indeed win both."
22 November 2009 Rhodes Scholarship Winners' Biographies. Note: One of the winners was Roxanne Bras, an ROTC student who graduated from Harvard and was commissioned in June 2009. "She is currently a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Germany, and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Airborne School and the U.S. Army Air Assault School. Roxanne is a Truman Scholar and marathon runner, and General David Petraeus has been her mentor since her early days in ROTC at M.I.T. At Oxford, she plans to do a graduate degree in international relations and military policy."
27 November 2009 Wall Street Journal letter "Honoring 16 Brave Sons of Harvard" by Paul E. Mawn. Note: The chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC writes to describe how after a 3 November WSJ column about Harvard's Medal of Honor recipients, "we were contacted by the relatives of Harvard alumni who earned the Medal of Honor, which allowed me to validate a grand total of 16 Medal of Honor recipients from Harvard (an increase of six from what we knew the previous week)" in time for the ceremony on Veterans Day.

2010:

22 January 2010 Stanford Review article "Initiative to Increase Understanding of U.S. Military". Note: The Truman Service Initiative aims to educate college students who are likely to become leaders about the nation’s armed forces. The initiative has programs at Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, the University of Chicago, and Yale. One subject that came up during a "Military 101" lecture at Stanford was making it easier for students to do ROTC. "Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service currently offers monetary support for car rentals to ROTC members, who need to drive to neighboring educational institutions to undergo training".
16 February 2010 Harvard Crimson article "Four Harvard Students Receive Gates Scholarships". Note: Harvard ROTC graduate Thomas M. Barron ’09, "an Army ROTC cadet at Harvard who is currently training at Fort Benning in Georgia, will put his military service on hold to complete his yearlong degree program at Cambridge.
19 February 2010 Harvard Crimson column "ROTC? ROFL! Antipathy for the military infiltrates the faculty" by Brian J. Bolduc '10. Note: Bolduc suggests that Harvard "seems headed toward recognition" of ROTC if the "Don't ask, don't tell" law is changed, despite some faculty whom Paul E. Mawn ’63, chairman of Advocates for Harvard ROTC, describes as “remnants of what I would call the Woodstock generation. These people supported the Vietcong. They view themselves as veterans of the anti-war movement.”
1 March 2010 Boston Herald article "Harvard may end 40-year ROTC ban: Don’t-ask-don’t-tell rule a key obstacle". Note: Some predicted that ROTC would return to Harvard if Congress repeals DADT, but others said the issue was more complicated, and expected "full official recognition of ROTC", not necessarily splitting of he Harvard students away from the three service ROTC programs at MIT.
24 March 2010 Harvard Crimson article "Minow Joins Protest of ‘Don’t Ask, Don't Tell’". Note: The letter from 6 law school deans "raises the question of whether ROTC will be allowed to return to campus if President Barack Obama’s carries out his promise to repeal the policy ... According to Paul E. Mawn ’63, chairman of the Advocates for Harvard ROTC, the organization is seeking official recognition for ROTC on campus with or without the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”" The original version of the article suggested that military recruiters were also banned from Harvard's campus, but that has not been true since court decisions safeguarding the right to recruit.
29 April 2010 Boston Globe editorial "To restore ROTC, end gay ban". Note: Citing both Harvard and Brown, the Globe observes that "Reserve Officers Training Corps units deserve a place at the nation’s elite universities, and Congress can make that happen easily by ending the military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian service members ... If more graduates of top colleges entered the services, the military and the schools alike would benefit". See letters here and here.
3 May 2010 The Harbus op-ed "Memorial Day: The Long Crimson Line" by Bobby Wolfe. Note: Wolfe, a veteran and Harvard Business School student, looks forward to the repeal of the "Don't ask, don't tell" law and observes "The Harvard students and administration will have a heavy weight lifted from their shoulders, and they should celebrate the diversity that ROTC cadets bring to the community of students".
21 May 2010 Boston Globe article "Harvard's ROTC grads to get full treatment in Yard commissioning". Note: Speaking at Harvard ROTC Commissioning on 26 May will be Michael G. Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, depicted in the film Charlie Wilson's War, former US Senator Paul Kirk '60 and Harvard President Drew Faust.
25 May 2010 The Atlantic column "DADT and Ivy League ROTC" by James Fallows. Note: Fallows argues that the "separation between an important military intake system and some of the most elite universities" is "bad for the military, bad for the universities, and bad for the country. Almost no one urging the anti-ROTC change of those days would have argued or imagined that 35 years after U.S. troops left Vietnam the ban should still be in place." See responses, but note that the claim that Stanford currently has Army ROTC is not true.
26 May 2010 Harvard Crimson op-ed "Lifting the ROTC Ban" by John P. Wheeler MBA ’69. Note: Wheeler writes that "Our country needs the best that Harvard has to offer in a new century of grave threats" and calls on Harvard to welcome ROTC.
26 May 2010 Harvard Gazette article "From Ivy to military: Harvard’s newest commissioned officers take the stage". Note: The article includes background on the speakers at the Harvard ROTC Commissioning ceremony, as well as that of Chuck DePriest '77, who was cited for his role in restoring an ROTC option at Harvard.
26 May 2010 Harvard ROTC Commissioning Ceremony 2010.
26 May 2010 Remarks of LTC Hall at Harvard ROTC Commissioning
26 May 2010 Remarks of Senator Kirk at Harvard ROTC Commissioning.
27 May 2010 Harvard Crimson article "At ROTC Ceremony, Faust Calls for Strong Relationship With Military". Note: "While not commenting directly on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy—which bans homosexuals from serving openly in the military—Faust seemed to allude to the policy when she asked the recently minted officers to “help reinforce the long tradition of ties between Harvard and military service, as we share hopes that changing circumstances will soon enable us to further strengthen those bonds.”"
28 May 2010 Harvard Magazine article "“Listen and Learn in Order to Lead”: The ROTC Commissioning Ceremony". Note: The article includes an image of the program and complete audio of the ceremony.
15 June 2010 Secure Nation blog item "Harvard Gets Its Horn On" by Jules Crittenden. Note: A Boston Herald editor sees "signs of sociological advancement at Harvard Yard" in its relations with ROTC and the military more widely.

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