Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 03:52:44 -0500 From: mike castleman To: rotc-taskforce@columbia.edu Cc: Thomas M Mathewson Subject: Thoughts on ROTC X-Editor: GNU nano 1.2.4 X-Public-Key: 0x7e407af9 http://mlcastle.net/pubkey.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.1i -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 To the Senate Task Force on ROTC: I write in comment to the proposal being circulated to bring ROTC and the United States Military to the Columbia Campus. As those of you who know me from my tenure on the Senate will not be surprised to learn, I strongly oppose this proposal for a number of reasons. ROTC IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOOD FINANCIAL AID SYSTEM Proponents of ROTC would have us believe that the program is largely or even primarily some sort of scholarship program for students from less-wealthy backgrounds. While some students do, in fact, receive money due to their participation in ROTC, viewing the program this way is deliberatively reductive. ROTC is a military officer training program; it is funded by the Department of Defense, not of Education. Vice President Cheney (when he was Secretary of Defense) put it this way: "The reason to have a military is to be prepared to fight and win wars...it's not a jobs program.[1]" Instead, ROTC (like the rest of the military recruiting apparatus) serves to target disadvantaged youth with promises of education which may be difficult for those youth to obtain otherwise. It is of course important to provide access to high-quality education to all. The best way to do so, however, is not to require that students join the military in exchange. In the specific case of Columbia, an institution so wealthy that it could stop charging undergraduate tuition if it wanted[2], the way to make education more accessible is not to encourage more students to join the military, but to increase the availability of financial aid to all students, regardless of their choice of career. THE UNIVERSITY SHOULD NOT FAVOR ROTC OVER ANY OTHER EXTERNALLY-RUN JOB OR INTERNSHIP PROGRAM Regardless of the argument above, the fact remains that some students currently enrolled in ROTC are so enrolled precisely because of the perceived monetary benefits. To this end, it may make sense to compare ROTC to other off-campus jobs that students may hold in order to help pay tuition. The University's current policy is that students enrolled in off-campus internships, paid or not, may receive only "R" credit for their work and do not receive any credits which may be used toward graduation[3]. It is, indeed, very difficult for students to take classes at other schools in the city and expect to receive credit for them. There is no reason why ROTC work, not reviewed by any academic department of the University, should be deemed uniquely worthy of credit. Furthermore, unlike most other programs, leaving ROTC can be financially very dangerous for students. A student who decides, for whatever reason, to leave the ROTC program, owes the military for the cost of any money previously paid towards that student's education. THE MILITARY VIOLATES THE UNIVERSITY'S ANTI-DISCRIMINATION POLICIES Members of ROTC are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including its prohibition of gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members. Any student in ROTC who decides, while enlisted in the program (a not-unforeseeable occurrence among college students), to "come out" could be discharged from the program and, as described above, owe the military any money thus far paid towards that student's education[4]. This is in obvious conflict with the University's nondiscrimination policies, which wisely "protect against discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national and ethnic origin, age, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, and marital status[5]." The University should not offer any programs which are not available to all its students. In addition to the well-publicized discrimination based on sexual orientation, the military habitually discriminates based on national origin. Civilians are routinely killed by the US military based on little more than their countries of residence. BRINGING ROTC TO COLUMBIA WILL NOT "REFORM" THE MILITARY Advocates of an ROTC program at Columbia often argue that interaction between ROTC members and other members of the University community will somehow create a military which is more in touch with academic and civilian life. However, nearly 40% of all current military officers already come from the ROTC program, and yet the military has not yet been "reformed" in the way that the ROTC advocates describe. It is, at best, unclear as to how adding a few more ROTC members from Columbia would suddenly change the whole system. Indeed, when presented with specific examples of ways that the military ought to change -- such as ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy or ending the bombing of innocent Iraqi civilians -- ROTC members and advocates usually immediately insist that they have no control over these areas and disclaim any responsibility for helping to change them[7]. THE MILITARY "CHAIN OF COMMAND" IS INHERENTLY ANTITHETICAL TO THE UNIVERSITY'S CORE VALUE OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT A university is, at its best, a place where ideas can be debated, questioned, and discussed freely. A military is a place where questioning an order or policy can result in "dishonorable" discharge from the service. Someone in civilian life who is uninterested in working on a new project for his or her boss can quit and find a new job. Someone in the military who is uninterested in following an order to go to some country and kill people based on the President's whim can be jailed[8]. Some ROTC advocates claim, perversely, that the University's choice not to have a ROTC program on campus is somehow limiting the freedom of inquiry of those who might wish to participate in such a program. This is a flawed argument: ROTC is not an academic study about the military or a pro-military advocacy organization. Both of these ought to be allowed to exist on campus, and indeed do exist on campus[9]. Rather, ROTC is itself the military, and serves to train its members to be more effective killers and leaders of killers. THE ROTC PROGRAM IS ALREADY AVAILABLE TO COLUMBIA STUDENTS Despite all the reasons not to participate in ROTC outlined here, a number of Columbia students (14, according to the advocates' proposal to the Senate) already participate in the ROTC program at Manhattan College, Fordham, or elsewhere. Although these students complain of the inconvenience of travelling to these other schools, they clearly show by example that it is already possible to be a Columbia student and a ROTC member. Surely the inconvenience faced is no greater than that faced by other students for must regularly travel about New York City for job, family, or other reasons. In any event, it is unclear that more students would want to join ROTC if only they did not have to get on the subway. For the reasons argued above, it is clear that the conclusions reached in 1969 are still valid today: ROTC has no place on Columbia's campus. If I may be of any further assistance to the Task Force in its deliberations, do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Michael Castleman SEAS '03 mailto:mlc67@columbia.edu tel:+1-(646)-382-7220 [1] Quoted at http://www.objector.org/before-you-enlist/hazardous.html [2] According to the University's IRS Form 990 (available from the Controller's office, the IRS, or guidestar.org) for the 2000-01 fiscal year (the latest year available when I performed this analysis as a student), Columbia had total revenues of $2.282 billion and total expenses of $1.841 billion, a difference of $441 million. Total income from tuition and fees was $461 million that year. Either tuition for all students could be reduced by 90%, or tuition could be eliminated entirely for almost all students, and the University still would have broke even. [3] http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/fysaac/forms/rcredforinternships.pdf [4] http://www.sldn.org/templates/get/record.html?section=19&record=741 [5] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/vpaa/eoaa/docs/nondispol.html [6] See the bottom part of Table 4.3 at http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep2001/chapter4/chapter4_3.htm The figures are from 2001, but presumably are still approximately accurate. [7] As one of many examples, see the advocates' response to the question on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in their initial proposal made to the University Senate. [8] http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/19/1449235 tells the story of Camilo Mejia, who faced a court martial for his refusal to return to Iraq when he applied for "Conscientious Objector" status after witnessing the torture of Iraqi detainees. [9] http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/lehman/guides/isc.html http://www.columbia.edu/cu/su4a/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCDHGRrbXc6n5AevkRAkW2AKCcD7Okeb5C/inl1+KkWjyrSPUWLgCgppng jGP/D4Xq3Yahih0bG34rnPA= =Foqd -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----