National ROTC Coverage: 2005 - present

• 2 January 2005 Boston Globe article "Readying to rise and shine in ROTC".  Note: ROTC enrolments at Northeastern University have fallen after their post-2001 surge.
• 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.
• 18 January 2005 USA Today column "Military service can open the eyes of country's 'elite'" by Kathryn Roth-Douquet.  Note:  The author relates a conversation with Senator Clinton discussing how to get "educated and talented" people to serve in the military.  The article discusses a draft but does not discuss ROTC.
• 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".
• 26 January 2005 Yale Daily News column "Until it's "do ask, do tell," ROTC has no place on this campus" by Andrew Beaty.
• 26 January 2005 Yale Daily News column "Think pro-gay and pro-ROTC is an oxymoron? Think again" by Tico Almeida.  Note:  The author, a leader of a gay student group before his graduation from Yale Law School, cites the increasing acceptance of gays by junior enlisted service members and concludes that "progressives should be fighting to bring ROTC chapters to all of the campuses with a current ban".
• 26-27 January 2005 University of Puerto Rico conference "Anti Militarism and the University".  Note:  The conference is organized by anti ROTC students and professors.
• 27 January 2005 Oregon Daily Emerald column "ROTC cadets are students, not robots".  Note:  A student tells an ROTC cadet "your uniform makes me uncomfortable".
• 28 January 2005 Columbia University Senate minutes "Update from the Senate Task Force on ROTC".
• 28 January 2005 Yale Daily News editorial "Bring in ROTC as soon as 'don't ask' is out".  Note:  The editorial claims incorrectly that "Don't ask, don't tell" is a Department of Defense policy.  It is federal law.
• 31 January 2005 Columbia Spectator article "No Change for CU in Military Recruiting".  Note: The ROTC and Military Recruiter Equal Access to Campus Act of 2004 was signed in October.
• 31 January 2005 Columbia spectator article "University Senate Debates Student Involvement in Future Task Forces".  Note:  The University Senate also heard an interim report from the its ROTC task force.  A "town hall meeting is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 15 for the task force to listen to the opinions of the Columbia community".
• 31 January 2005 Yale Daily News letter "'Don't ask, don't tell' is red herring in ROTC debate" by David Bookstaber '99.  Note:  Bookstaber observes "It is true that any other employer would be charged with unlawful discrimination if it enforced a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on sexuality. But note likewise that any other employer would be hauled into court for enforcing such strict and arbitrary physical requirements as does the military, for forcing employees to at times work 100-hour weeks for below minimum wage, or for intentionally putting its employees in mortal danger. Yep, the military is pretty special."
• February 2005 US Government Petition to the Supreme Court for Writ of Certiorari on Solomon Amendment.
• 2 February 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial "Wisdom of Solomon: The disgrace of blocking military recruiters from campus".  Note:  The Wall Street Journal predicts that the Supreme Court will uphold the Solomon Amendment.
• 2 February 2005 Yale Daily News article "University bans JAG recruiters".
• 2 February 2005 Associated Press article "House urges recruiting decision reversal".  Note:  In a non-binding 327-84 vote the House of Representatives urged a court challenge to the Third Circuit court decision overturning the Solomon Amendment.
• 3 February 2005 Associate Press article "Court stays enforcement of ruling on college military recruiters".  Note:  The Third Circuit court panel that overturned the Solomon Amendment halted implementation of the decision while the case is appealed to the Supreme Court.
• 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.
• 8 February 2005 Yale Daily News letter "Making light of 'don't ask, don't tell is worrying" by Bradley Bailey '05.
• 9 February 2005 Yale Daily News column "End to 'don't ask' won't come through JAG ban" by Keith Urbahn.
• 10 February 2005 Washington Square News column "NYU: Sever all military ties" by Jason Rowe.  Note: Rowe observes "In 1969, as the United States was carrying out horrible atrocities in Vietnam, NYU students evicted the ROTC from campus - literally. They broke into its on-campus office and trashed the place" and says now "it is time for us to finish the job".  See response on 16 February.
• 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."
• 15 February 2005 transcript "Proceedings of the University Senate: Should Columbia restore ROTC? A Town Hall meeting moderated by the Senate Task Force on ROTC".
• 16 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Debaters Battle Military Recruit Policies at CU".  Note:  The article describes the Columbia University Senates' Town Hall meeting about the proposal to return ROTC to Columbia.  ROTC proponents discussed how ROTC at Columbia would be good for Columbia and good for the country and ROTC opponents cited the Federal Law about homosexuality in the military.
• 16 February 2005 Columbia Spectator column "ROTC, You Are (Still) Not Wanted Here" by Nick Rosenthal.  Note:  The writer calls for preventing discussion of the Columbia ROTC issue in the New York Times and says that the attitude of ROTC proponents to gays is that "we like to rape them with broomsticks".  See Chadwick , Scavone and Hwong letters in response.
• 16 February 2005 New York Sun article "ROTC Program May Be Revived At Columbia U".  Note:  The Chairman of Columbia's Senate Task Force on restoration of ROTC, Prof. James Applegate said "If the faculty senate voted to restore ROTC ... the program would probably come without academic credit, and ROTC educators would receive the title of instructor rather than professor. Drill instruction would probably take place off campus."
• 16 February 2005 Washington Square News letter "Rowe’s anti-ROTC views unjustified" by Derick Vollrath '07.  Note: Vollrath denounces the apparent threat in Rowe's 10 February column to expel ROTC students from the NYU campus.
• 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."
• 18 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Ghosts of '68 Haunt Latest ROTC Debate: Current Fight Over ROTC's Return to Campus is Newest Chapter in Program's Controversial History".  Note:  Participants at the Columbia Senate Town Hall on ROTC looked ahead to the wider campus debate on the ROTC restoration proposal.  Student Nate Treadwell said “This shouldn’t be up to majority opinion... Nondiscrimination is a principle that shouldn’t be waived if any number of students want it”.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Henry Waller, Columbia Business School '05.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Shane Hachey GS '04.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Eric Chen GS '06.  Note:  Chen discusses ROTC and Columbia's non-discrimination policy and argues that excluding ROTC jeopardizes the university's principles of diversity and inclusiveness.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Jason Van Steenwyk.  Note: Jason Van Steenwyk runs the Countercolumn blog.
• 19 February 2005 "Letter to the Columbia Senate Task Force on Restoration of ROTC" by Sarah Walter.  Note: Sarah Walter runs the Trying to Grok blog.
• 21 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Rosenthal Wilfully Overlooks the Positive Aspects of Military Service" by Joshua Chadwick, Law ’05.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 21 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Columnist Espouses a “Narrow Political Agenda" by Adam Scavone.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 25 February 2005 Columbia University Senate "Emails Sent to the ROTC Task Force".
• 25 February 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Free To Be You and Me" by Shane Hachey GS '04.
• 25 February 2005 Columbia Spectator letter "Columnist’s Depiction of ROTC Was Inaccurate and Harmful" by Taylor Hwong, SEAS ’92.  Note:  This letter responds to a 16 February column.
• 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.
• 25 February 2005 National Law Journal article "U.S. Judge: No Yale Law Clerks".  Note:  The judge was protesting Yale's exclusion of military recruiters.
• 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.)
• 28 February 2005 Columbia Spectator article "U. Senate Meets, Responds to MEALAC Debate".  Note: "James Applegate, co-chair of the ROTC Task Force Committee, presented a report on the Town Hall Meeting about the issue at Columbia on Feb. 15".
• 1 March 2005 Human Events column "The War Within: Academia and the U.S. Military" by LTC Robert Patterson.
• 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.
• 2 March 2005 FrontPage Magazine column "The War on Men In Uniform" by Alec Mouhibian.  Note: "members of the Academic Senate at the University of California-Santa Barbara have launched a crusade to ban the ROTC from campus".
• 2 March 2005 Yale Daily News article "Yale schools vary on military recruiting policy".
• 2 March 2005 United Press International article "Bill submitted to allow gays in military".  Note:  Supporters of the bill include "eight former generals and admirals, including one who helped craft the policy for the Pentagon in 1993, and the three retired officers who in December 2003 revealed their homosexuality after decades of successful service".
• 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 Columbia Spectator editorial "ROTC: Return".  Note:  Columbia's student newspaper said "While we oppose many of the military’s policies, particularly its “don’t ask, don’t tell” program, we recognize the valuable ideological and socioeconomic diversity that a military presence would bring to campus... As we hope the military would change our campus, so would we hope to change the military".
• 3 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Columbia Liberals and ROTC Conservatives Can Help Each Other" by Jason Elliott.  Note:  The author said "As the debate over whether to bring the ROTC back to Columbia rages, I’d like to be one of the first left-wingers to rise in support of reinstating the program... If we—the left wing—want to fundamentally change the way America’s military is managed, we should do it from the inside, by becoming the leadership: officers in the armed forces, or officials in the Department of Defense".
• 3 March 2005 Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web Today" item "The New Generation Gap" by James Taranto.  Note: Taranto cites the pro-ROTC editorial and column in the Columbia Spectator and suggests that students are "more patriotic today than their predecessors were in the 1960s and '70s".
• 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".
• 3 March 2005 GedankenTravelExperiment blog item "ROTC".  Note:  The author criticizes reasons cited against ROTC at Columbia.
• 13 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "A Vote for ROTC Is a Vote for Affirmative Action".
• 13 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "ROTC: Democracy's Champions".
• 18 March 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC flyer "ROTC Addresses Class Inequality".
• 18 March 2005 Students United for America flyer "Why is the Reserves Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Right for Columbia?".
• 22 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Against the Proposed ROTC Restoration" by Yi-Sheng Ng, Karyn Lukoff, Katherine Redmon, Christian Sjulssen, and Dustin Brauneck.  Note:  The Columbia Queer Alliance, the Coming Out Group and Q, Barnard College’s queer student organization, say that "Members of the ROTC have been expelled after marching in a PRIDE parade, even though some were straight allies".
• 22 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Pretend Nobody Gets Hurt" by Matt Grice.
• 23 March 2005 Army Times article "Army seeks to increase ROTC commissions".
• 28 March 2005 Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC "More emails to the Senate ROTC Task Force".  Note: One writer says that a "quick review" of ROTC courses suggest they are "hardly likely to be of interest to non-ROTC students".  A good counterexample is the course detailed in MIT Sloan Fellows Learn from Army During Leadership Exercise.  The same writer says the "oft-repeated claim is that military experience is widely valued by civilian employers" which the writer thinks this is "generally untrue".  Some good example on this issue are in the Associated Press article "Secretive Military Units Provide Training Ground for Israel's High-Tech Leaders".  Perhaps there would be more such examples in the United States if universities such as Columbia had ROTC programs. 
• 29 March 2005 Columbia Spectator column "When Exclusion Breeds Exclusion" by Dennis Schmelzer.  Note:  The author asks why the military, which was ahead of society in integration of blacks and women, lags on integration of gays, and suggests that one factor is the absence of ROTC programs at elite universities.
• 1 April 2005 Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC "Results of deliberations".  Note:  The Task Force deadlocked 5-5 on the question of whether ROTC should return despite the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 5 April 2005 FrontPage column "The Campus Left's War on ROTC" by Jamie Weinstein.  Note:  The author is uncomfortable with the "Don't ask, don't tell" law but notes "There are reasons why men and women do not share barracks today, and it is the same reason -- or at least a major part of the reason -- for the reluctance to allow gays into the service. "  He goes on to call for modification of "Don't ask don't tell" to exclude soldiers for which sexual privacy concerns are not very relevant, such as translators.
• 5 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Debate Advances Toward Senate Decision: Task Force Split on Recommendation; Debate Centers on Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Policy".  Note:  The full University Senate is planning a May 6 vote on the proposal.
• 5 April 2005 Columbia Spectator column "A Betrayal in Soldier's Clothing" by Matt Smith.  Note:  Smith calls for taxpayer-funded scholarships to be free of payback provisions such as military service.
• 6 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Panel Examines ROTC Conflict: Clash Between CU Non-Discrimination Policy And Military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Stressed".
• 6 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Conservativism and Feminism Combined".  Note: Tammy Bruce, an author and former chapter head of the National Organization for Women said "the exclusion of the ROTC is no different from the exclusion of other on-campus groups".
• 7 April 2005 Daily Princetonian article "Referendum sought on Army ROTC: Students petition USG to take action against ROTC, military recruiting on campus".
• 8 April 2005 Daily Princetonian article "Petition on ROTC to be discussed".
• 11 April 2005 Daily Princetonian article "Senate tables amendment: Vote on proposed USG non-discrimination policy postponed".
• 13 April 2005 Daily Princetonian article "Whig-Clio votes to back ROTC".  Note:  Student Powell Fraser noted that "the on-campus Army ROTC program has roughly 30 cadets, as opposed to six in the off-campus Air Force program that trains at Rutgers University".
• 13 April 2005 Daily Princetonian editorial "Student body needs to voice opinion on ROTC: Debate on the issue should continue despite USG decision to table amendment".
• 14 April 2005 Daily Princetonian column "ROTC debate tests limits of empathy" by Jeremy Golubcow-Teglasi.  Note:  A student argues for expelling ROTC because "the deprivation of all is preferable to the depriviation of some", referring to gay students excluded from the military.
• 14 April 2005 Daily Princetonian letter "Sacrifice of ROTC cadets should not be  undervalued" by Will Wrightson '88.
• 14 April 2005 Washington Times article "Youth group backs ROTC on campus".  Note:  Young America's Foundation launched a nationwide pro-ROTC effort.
• 14 April 2005 New York Post column "Columbia's Bigotry" by Charles E. F. Millard.  Note:  The column describes how supporters of ROTC at Columbia offered to make common cause with opponents of the "Don't ask Don't tell" law and were spurned.
• 14 April 2005 The Heights (Boston College) column "ROTC espouses Jesuit values through and through" by Lt. Richard J. Holahan.
• 14 April 2005 Power Line blog item "Don't ask, we'll tell".  Note:  The preference of anti-ROTC forces at Columbia for a "Teach-In" instead of a debate is criticized.
• 14 April 2005 Johns Hopkins News-Letter article "ROTC offers cadets unique education".
• 14 April 2005 Johns Hopkins News-Letter column "ROTC policy incongruent with 'tolerant' university" by Blake Trettien.  Note:  The author notes that the ROTC program does not follow the university's nondiscrimination policy for sexual orientation, but does not mention that it doesn't follow provisions on age, gender, veteran status or disability either.
• 14 April 2005 "Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University: Statement of the Student Senate Executive Committee".  Note:  The statement said "We believe ROTC’s war-making and policy against homosexuals are violations of the sacredness of human life" and urged shunning the military "until drastic democratic reforms are made to US foreign and domestic policy ... Some of us are pacifists and others of us simply reject the US military in its current manifestation".
• 15 April 2005 Columbia University Senate "Transcript of Special Senate Meeting on ROTC".
• 15 April 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC handout for 15 April Columbia University Senate debate on the Proposal to Restore ROTC "Salient points for ROTC".
• 15 April 2005 Power Line blog item "Honor and disgrace".  Note:  Scott Johnson recalls the "military brief" solicited by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger in the University of Michigan affirmative action case and asks why Bollinger "isn't equally solicitous of those signatories on the subject of ROTC on campus".
• 15 April 2005 "Report to the Columbia University Senate and Personal Statement" by Nate Walker, co-chair of Columbia University Senate's Task Force on ROTC.  Note:  Walker amends his original comments on the meaning of the wide agreement that ROTC should return to Columbia if there were no "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  
• 18 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "U. Senate Hears ROTC Findings: Task Force Split 5-5 On Proposal to Return ROTC Immediately".
• 19 April 2005 Daily Princetonian column "ROTC debate must focus on community" by Freddie LaFemina.  Note:  LaFemina argues for "examining the effects of "don't ask, don't tell" on our own community, not the nation."
• 19 April 2005 Personal Statement by Fred W. Cook "ROTC at Columbia".  Note:  This statement outlines a plan for an ROTC presence at Columbia.  It is similar to the plan discussed in 2004 for Harvard as outlined in a statement by LTC Brian Baker and covered in a 16 December 2004 Wall Street Journal article.  Fred Cook is a member of the Defense Business Board.  Transcripts of 14 May 2003, 30 July 2003 and 12 May 2004 Defense Business Board meetings discussing return of ROTC to elite colleges contain key comments by him, thus his personal statement is likely to represent Pentagon thinking.
• 20 April 2005 Cornell Daily Sun column "DADT: Facing Facts and Summing Up" by Jamie Weinstein.  Note:  The author asks whether it would have been right to exclude the US military during World War II because of discrimination against blacks.
• 21 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "ROTC Debate Continues at Open Forum".  Note:  Nate Walker, co-chair of the Columbia University Senate ROTC Task Force, seems to indicate that all 5 who voted for the "ROTC if no DADT" resolution voted against the "ROTC even if DADT" resolution, meaning that the sole abstention on the "ROTC if no DADT" resolution was by an ROTC supporter.
• 21 April 2005 Daily Cardinal (University of Wisconsin) article "Protesters, ROTC clash over campus recruiting".
• 21 April 2005 NBC News (Madison WI) item "Forum Held on Military Recruiting on UW Campus".  Note:  Chancellor John Wiley said the campus is a place to hear all kinds of viewpoints, whether students support them or not. "I find it frankly condescending and insulting to assert that the military is so deceptive you can figure out what deception they're engaged in and the other students can't; they need your help to protect them from themselves."
• 24 April 2005 Washington Post article "Enrollment in Army ROTC Down in Past 2 School Years: More Officers Now Being Commissioned From Earlier Pool, But Problem Looms".  Note:  Army ROTC enrollments are now below pre-9/11 levels, but commissionings are still high as the post-9/11 surge graduates.  Navy and Air Force ROTC are still above pre-9/11 levels.
• 25 April 2005 Speakers and transcript of the panel and discussion, “Perspectives on the Future of ROTC at Columbia”.
• 26 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Panelists Examine ROTC's Role on Campus: With University Senate Vote Approaching, 'Advocates for Columbia ROTC' Sponsors Forum".
• 27 April 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Univ. Senate Advances Toward Vote on ROTC: Executive Committee Approves Resolution on Future of ROTC for May 6 Senate Body Vote".  Note:  ROTC Task Force co-chairman Prof. Applegate raised the possibility that a vote on ROTC may not occur at the 6 May Columbia University Senate meeting.
• 27 April 2005 Brown Daily Herald article "Brown and the military: 33 years after ROTC, Brown and the military still on unsteady terms".  Note:  Lt. Col. Steven McGonagle, professor of military science at Providence College said his Brown cadets are "the very best leaders of my battalion here," calling them "really world-class people and great leaders."
• 28 April 2005 Brown Daily Herald OpEd "Pro-ROTC doesn't mean pro-war" by Brian Barbata '68.  Note:  Barbata asks "why not "support our troops" by providing them with the best and brightest leaders?"
• 29 April 2005 article ""Don't ask, don't tell" and ROTC: Taking the moral high ground at Columbia" by Michael Segal.
• 29 April 2005 "For ROTC at Columbia" by Prof. Allan Silver, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.  Note:  Prof. Silver, who supported removal of ROTC in 1969, argues for the importance in reducing the civilian - military gap.
• 29 April 2005 Columbia News Tonight segment "Should ROTC return to Columbia? A Roundtable Discussion. Guests: Nate Walker, Co-Chair, ROTC Task Force; Scott Stewart, Columbia student, former soldier."
• 1 May 2005 New York Times article "Offering R.O.T.C. a Truce".  Note:  The movement at Columbia to restore ROTC has "signaled a shift in student attitudes toward the military and encouraged vigorous conversation on campus."
• 1 May 2005 "The Case for ROTC at Columbia" by Prof. James H. Applegate, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University, Co-Chair, Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC.  Note: Prof. Applegate suggests that the arguments against ROTC "arise from our looking inward and seeing Columbia in isolation".
• 1 May 2005 INTEL DUMP blog item "Bringing ROTC back to Columbia's campus".  Note:  In the responses to the item, Dave Glazier gives practical reasons why having ROTC is more important than whether recruiting is on campus.
• 1 May 2005 UW-Madison Stop the War press release "Air Force ROTC cancels recruiting event in response to student protest".
• 1 May 2005 Outside the Whale blog item "Columbia May Reinstate the Campus Reserve Officers Training Corps Chapter".  Note:  The importance of universities such as Columbia being involved in ROTC is stressed because the military now has a "greater emphasis on dealing with the threat of terrorism but also democratization and nation and institution building".
• 2 May 2005 "Tell Me Again Why Columbia Should Restore ROTC" by Columbia Alliance for ROTC.
• 3 May 2005 New York Times article "Justices Accept a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Recruiting Suit".  Note:  The Supreme Court accepted a case about military recruiting and the Solomon Amendment.  The ROTC issue is similar in terms of the compulsion claim but different in terms of the free expression claim.
• 4 May 2005 "Statement for the Final Report of the Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC" by Sean Wilkes CC '06, Member of the Task Force and Chairman of Advocates for Columbia ROTC.
• 4 May 2005 Columbia Community Discusses "Don't ask, don't tell" and ROTC.  Note:  A set of actual e-mails debating the "Don't ask, don't tell" issue from a variety of perspectives.
• 4 May 2005 SF Gate column "Supporting The Troops? Not On Campus" by Cinnamon Stillwell.
• 5 May 2005 The Dartmouth article "ROTC may receive full college grants from Army".  Note: A student-initiated request may lead to an upgrade of ROTC funding and status at Dartmouth.
• 5 May 2005 Columbia University Senate Task Force on ROTC "Final Report of the ROTC Task Force". 
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Executive Committee "Resolution to Establish a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Program at Columbia University". 
• 6 May 2005 Advocates for Columbia ROTC statement on ROTC at Columbia and “don’t ask, don’t tell”
• 6 May 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Senate Rejects ROTC's Return: Resolution Overturned in Last Meeting of Year".  Note:  The Columbia University Senate rejected a proposal to invite ROTC to Columbia (this article reports the initial inaccurate tally).  The reason most cited was the "Don't ask, don't tell law".
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate transcript of Senate meeting on ROTC.
• 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate "Columbia University Senate vote on resolution to establish an ROTC program at Columbia University".  Note:  The Senate includes faculty, administrators and students.  Although the vote was reported slightly differently initially, it was 53-10 against establishing an ROTC program.
• 7 May 2005 New York Times article "Columbia U. Senate Votes Against Return of R.O.T.C.".  Note:  Alan Brinkley, Columbia's provost, said during the debate "Would we agree to an organization on campus," that allowed "African-Americans to join this organization only if they pass for white?"
• 8 May 2005 INTEL DUMP blog item "Columbia U. makes a myopic move".
• 8 May 2005 article "After the Vote: Why ROTC Belongs At Columbia" by Prof. Allan Silver, Department of Sociology, Columbia University.
• 9 May 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Reserve Officer Training Corps: After Semester of Debate, ROTC To Stay Off Campus".
• 9 May 2005 New York Sun editorial "AWOL at Columbia".  Note:  The Sun notes "the lack of protest of the policies of the Islamist enemy in respect of gay rights" at Columbia and argues that one is not "helping the causes of tolerance or civil rights by staying on the sidelines of this war".
• 9 May 2005 Inside Higher Ed article "Columbia Says No, Still, to ROTC".
• 11 May 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial "A Tale of Two Columbias: The patriotic and the politically correct".  Note:  See responses on 17 May and 26 May.
• 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".  See letter in response on 18 May.  Prof. Cohen, a Harvard ROTC graduate, is pictured here at his son's Harvard ROTC commissioning.
• 13 May 2005 Stanford Review article "ROTC's Continued Exile Disgraceful".
• 13 May 2005 Stanford Review column "Students Deserve to Have ROTC Back on Campus" by Milton Solorzano.
• 13 May 2005 Villainous Company blog item "The Wisdom of Solomon".  Note:  Cassandra discusses the University Senate vote against ROTC at Columbia and argues that using the Solomon Amendment for ROTC removes the argument that universities with ROTC are tacitly expressing approval for the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 16 May 2005 New York Sun article "Fossella: Federal Money at Risk For Columbia".  Note:  A New York City congressman suggests that the Secretary of Defense could invoke the Solomon Amendment over Columbia's rejection of ROTC.
• 17 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Columbia, ROTC and Sexual Orientation" by President Lee C. Bollinger (also on Columbia's Web site).  Note:  Responding to an editorial, Pres. Bollinger writes "After acknowledging that reasonable people can differ over the military's prohibition on openly gay and lesbian servicemen and women, the editorial goes on to suggest that those of us who disagree with that prohibition are anti-military, and to question our motivations."  However, this is not an accurate portrayal of the debate at Columbia.  As the Columbia ROTC Task Force report makes clear, proponents of the return of ROTC to Columbia also opposed "Don't ask, don't tell".  The disagreement between pro and anti-ROTC sides at Columbia was whether the benefits of ROTC outweighed the disagreements with the federal law.  Pres. Bollinger went on to blame the government for putting an end to the discussion about ROTC at Columbia, noting that his vote against return of ROTC "was based on a serious concern for the integrity of the university in the face of the federal government's use of the power of the purse to force institutions to compromise their principles".  However, the best indications of Pentagon intentions available before the vote were that "the Pentagon cannot provide a positive request or indication to Columbia to reestablish an ROTC unit on campus because, to do so, would trigger the Solomon Amendment should Columbia turn down the request".  See also a letter in response on 26 May.
• 18 May 2005 New York Sun article "Columbia To Consider Bringing ROTC Back to Campus".  Note:  The chairman of the board of trustees, David Stern, said he is pushing to the forefront of the board's agenda the issue of the university's policy toward ROTC.
• 18 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Denying Students ROTC" by David Thomas.  Note:  Responding to Prof. Cohen's article on 13 May, Thomas states that "denying students exposure to ROTC and military history is as short-sighted as eliminating, say, women's studies."
• 19 May 2005 New York Sun editorial "Wisdom of Solomon".  Note:  The Sun calls for the trustees of Columbia to restore ROTC and notes that "many of those most committed to pressing the government to change its policy toward gays in the military are those asking that Columbia open its doors to ROTC."  For examples, see the Columbia University Senate Task Force Report, this email discussion and this proposal for immediate changes in the law.
• 19 May 2005 Inside Higher Ed article "ROTC Debate Not Over at Columbia".  Note:  The board of trustees will meet on 4 June and "has invited Senate representatives from both sides of the debate to answer questions on that, and a host of other issues". 
• 20 May 2005 New York Daily News editorial "Columbia declares war on ROTC".
• 23 May 2005 New York Daily News column "Columbia's old elite a new ROTC enemy" by Shane Hachey.  Note:  The submitted text is here.
• 23 May 2005 Voice of America story "U.S. Supreme Court Will Review Law that Denies Funding to Campuses that Bar Military".  Note:  Columbia University student Scott Stewart, a gay veteran who supports ROTC on campus, says you have to associate with the military to influence it.
• 24 May 2005 "Amendment to H.R. 1815, As Reported: Offered by Mr. Stearns of Florida".  Note:  The amendment specifies that "the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a report on the colleges and universities that are denying equal access to military recruiters and ROTC programs".
• 25 May 2005 Minneapolis Star Tribune article "ROTC ban brings attention to UW-Stout campus".
• 25 May 2005 Congressional Record Debate on the Stearns Amendment to H.R. 1815.  Note:  Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) cited the difficulty of Yale students traveling to ROTC training and praised the support of Harvard President Lawrence Summers for ROTC.
• 26 May 2005 Chronicle of Higher Education "House-Passed Bill Orders Pentagon to Report on Colleges That Ban Military Recruiters".  Note:  On 25 May the House of Representatives passed Rep. Stearns' amendment to H.R. 1815 on ROTC and military recruiting by a vote of 336 to 92.
• 26 May 2005 Wall Street Journal letter "Columbia's 'Compromising' Exactly What Principles?" by Irving Louis Horowitz.  Note:  Prof. Horowitz responds to President Bollinger's letter about the editorial on ROTC at Columbia.
• 27 May 2005 Washington Blade column "Backwards ban on military recruiters" by James Kirchick.  Note:  A Yale undergraduate argues for ROTC in a gay weekly: "The military brass itself is far more likely to empathize with someone who once wore a uniform and risked their life than they are to heed the hectoring of a liberal faculty member... While I may find “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” to be unjust, it is more important that my straight peers have the opportunity to serve their country and defend the freedoms that gay activists have also fought so courageously to enshrine".
• 30 May 2005 Washington Times column "Honor thy soldiers" by Suzanne Fields.  Note:  Fields discusses the University Senate vote against ROTC at Columbia and quotes Harvard President Lawrence Summers as saying that military service is "vitally important to the freedom that makes possible institutions like Harvard".
• 31 May 2005 Associated Press article "UW-Stout now welcomes ROTC chapter, chancellor says".  Note:  The chancellor said he didn't know his initial decision to deny ROTC could jeopardize more than $16 million in federal funds annually.
• Spring 2005 Columbia magazine article "University Senate Says No to ROTC".  Note:  Although the Senate vote was not binding "the administration has pledged to respect the vote".  Nate Walker '08TC, who co-chaired the ROTC Task Force, said "It's clear to me, from my work on the senate, that when the military stops its invidious discriminatory practices, Columbia probably will support ROTC's return", referring to the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  Provost Alan Brinkley, who abstained from voting as is his custom, despite an impassioned anti-ROTC speech, said "there does not seem to be strong intrinsic opposition toward the military, other than with regard to this discriminatory policy".
• 1 June 2005 Stanford Daily article "Students question ROTC policy".  Note:  John Patrick Bennett, a sophomore an ex-Air Force ROTC member, describes how he had to drop out of ROTC because "the three trips a week to San Jose State did not fit into his schedule".
• 1 June 2005 National Public Radio "All Things Considered" item "U.S. Government Punishes Schools That Ban Military Recruiting".  Note:  NPR interviewed Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) about his amendment to H.R. 1815 on ROTC and military recruiting that passed by a vote of 336 to 92.  NPR also spoke with Rich Jacob, Associate Vice President for Federal Relations at Yale, who read a statement saying "For many years we have not had enough student interest to warrant the establishment of an ROTC unit at Yale".
• 2 June 2005 Associate Press article "Wisconsin Lawmakers Threaten To Pull College Funding In ROTC Gay Flap".  Note: Wisconsin state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald said "I expect more out of our state's academic leaders than to let their own personal politics try to deny UW students interested in training for a career as a military officer from being allowed to do so".
• 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 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 Associated Press article "Army Headed to Recruiting Shortfall".  Note:  "Charles Moskos, a sociology professor and expert on military personnel issues at Northwestern University, has said the Army's recruiting woes are likely to persist until the children of upper-class America begin to enlist more readily".
• 8 June 2005 Harvard Independent article "ROTC Commissioning Ceremony".
• 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".
• 18 June 2005 New York Times letter "When the Army Comes to School" by Barbara Bernstein.  Note:  The Executive Director of the Nassau Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union lists two ways to bar military recruiting from high school, including adopting a nondiscrimination policy on the basis of sexual orientation. 
• 30 June 2005 The Dartmouth article "ROTC garners student support; admin. split".  Note:  Dartmouth College President James Wright is described as supporting ROTC in private but being "afraid of the faculty".  A poll showed students supportive of ROTC but opposing the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.
• 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.”"
• 18 July 2005 Amicus brief by Daniel Polsby et al. in Rumsfeld v. FAIR.
• 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".
• 29 July 2005 Instapundit blog item by Glenn Reynolds.  Note:  Reynolds cites criticism of the volunteer military and writes "I do agree that the "distance" of the military from American society is really a distance from left-leaning American society. Perhaps we should bring back mandatory ROTC at universities".
• 18 August 2005 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal item "Make Class War, Not War" in "Best of the Web Today" by James Taranto.  Note:  Taranto cites New York Times columnist Bob Herbert's call for children of the privileged classes to serve in the military and suggests that Herbert write about the efforts to restore ROTC at elite colleges.  (A correction on the military recruiting part of the item appeared the next day.)
• 29 August 2005 University of South Florida Oracle article "ROTC programs prepping for unique change: New joint program would be one-of-a-kind".  Note:  Army, Air Force and Navy ROTC programs will operate jointly.
• 30 August 2005 Pew Research Center for the People and the Press report "Religion A Strength And Weakness For Both Parties".  Note:  The study shows an increase in public support for gays in the military and a decrease in intense opposition since the DADT legislation in the 1990s.
• 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.
• September 2005 VFW Magazine article "Anti-Military Sentiments Persist on Elite Campus".  Note: Many of the leaders of the Columbia effort were quoted, including Advocates for Columbia ROTC chairman Sean Wilkes and alumni group Columbia Alliance for ROTC chairman Ted Graske CC'59.
• September 2005 "Washington Monthly College Guide: Other guides ask what colleges can do for you. We ask what are colleges doing for the country."  Note:  A college's ranking is improved by forms of national service such as 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."
• 26 September 2005 Daily Princetonian article "Solomon Amendment: Schools file brief on recruiting".  Princeton is not joining the legal action by law schools because it welcomes ROTC and military recruiting and it does not have a law school.
• 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.
• 10 October 2005 Daily Princetonian editorial "University should lobby against Solomon Amendment".
• 12 October 2005 American Council of Trustees and Alumni press release "Hypocrisy 101: The Academy and Military Recruiters".  Note:  ACTA lists the federal funds at risk under the Solomon Amendment.  Of the listed colleges barring ROTC, Columbia leads with $457 million at risk.
• 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".
• 13 October 2005 Stars and Stripes article "Most Recruits Don't Object to Gays in Military".  Note: The study of a group "targeted to mirror people most likely to join the military" was done by Aaron Belkin, founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military.  The study found that 76% of respondents felt that having openly gay soldiers in the military would have no effect on their own decision to enlist, 2% said it would increase their likelihood of enlisting and 21% said it would decrease their likelihood of enlisting.
• 19 October 2005 The Dartmouth article "Assembly divides over ROTC statement".  Note:  A proposal would increase the ROTC scholarships and open them to students who were openly gay.
• 21 October 2005 Yale Daily News editorial "To defend academia, keep fighting Solomon".  Note: The editorial responds to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni initiative on the Solomon Amendment by asserting that the government should not have the "authority to leverage federal financing and dictate university policies".  The editorial did not discuss the use of such federal authority in the Title IX rules about university gender policies.
• 21 October 2005 Columbia University Senate "Minutes of September 16, 2005".  Note:  Senator Paul Duby reported on the discussions at the June Columbia University Trustees meeting about the ROTC issue.  When "a Trustee asked if there was anything else the Trustees were expected to do on this subject; Sen. Duby said Provost Alan Brinkley answered in one word: No".  The minutes also note that "the Task Force made some recommendations for improving conditions for Columbia students who are pursuing ROTC off campus, at Manhattan College or Fordham. One was to provide more assistance in the form of transportation, or maybe a small office on the Columbia campus. Another was to assure that any students barred from ROTC because of their sexual preference would be eligible for equivalent financial support from Columbia. Sen. Duby said he and Sen. Applegate would discuss these issues with the provost."
• 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. 
• 25 October 2005 Columbia Spectator column "Columbia Plays Dirty Pool" by John Mateus.  Note:  A Columbia Law student calls interference with military interviews, which blocked him from being interviewed, "underhanded and sabotage" and criticizes the unwillingness of Columbia to stop the interference.  See also responses by Karyn Lukoff, Michelle Rutherford and Cuauhtemoc Ortega.
• 1 November 2005 Military.com column "Are ROTC Officers Better?" by Bruce Fleming.  Note: A professor at the US Naval Academy looks at the cost and benefits of ROTC versus service academies.
• 4 November 2005 The Lafayette article "ROTC wants more recognition".
• 6 November 2005 Upside Down world article "Students Occupy Army ROTC Building in Puerto Rico".
• 21 November 2005 Daily Princetonian article "ROTC cadets do battle at simulated war zone in nearby Fort Dix".
• December 2005 Yale Free Press article "ROTC and Yale: Which is the four-letter word?" by Joseph Callo.  Note:  A Yale Navy ROTC graduate observes "Part of the problem with “don’t ask, don’t tell” is the unwillingness by some to recognize that the military is not the same as corporate, academic, or, in fact, any other kind of civilian activity" and notes "you can judge an organization by whom it honors. Now, think hard; when was the last time Yale honored a graduate—anyone, for that matter—for achievement in a military career?"
• 3 December 2005 Wall Street Journal column "The Wisdom of Solomon" by Gerald Walpin (also available without subscription on the OpinionJournal site; with responses).  Note: A director of the Center for Individual Rights discusses the reasoning of their amicus brief in FAIR v. Rumsfeld.  He does not mention the irony that Association of American Law Schools accreditation rules compel law schools to oppose military recruiting on campus.
• 6 December 2005 Wall Street Journal article "Law Schools, Military Battle Over Recruiting". 
• 6 December 2005 "Supreme Court Audio".  Note:  Full audio of oral arguments in Rumsfeld v. FAIR.
• 7 December 2005 Washington Post article "Before High Court, Law Schools v. Military: Can Congress Cut Funds Over Curbs on Recruiters?"
• 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.
• 7 December 2005 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Hears Solomon Amendment Case".  Note:  The article mentions how Solicitor General Paul Clement began to argue that the 2004 change to the Solomon Amendment did not demand greater access for the military than other employers and Justice Scalia said he was "galloping in the wrong direction".
• 7 December 2005 New York Times article "Supreme Court Weighs Military's Access to Law Schools".  Note:  The Times notes the Association of American Law Schools accreditation rules that compel law schools to oppose military recruiting and quotes the justices as rejecting the constitutional argument that the Solomon Amendment and its 2004 revision compel speech about military recruiting.
• 8 December 2005 Wall Street Journal "Best of the Web Today" item "The Antimilitary Party"  by James Taranto.  Note: Taranto notes the civilian - military gap in political views and suggests this could be overcome with more bipartisan support for programs like ROTC.
• 9 December 2005 New York Times Op-Ed "Fighting on the Wrong Front" by Peter H. Schuck.  Note: Prof. Schuck discusses the Supreme Court deliberations on the Solomon Amendment case and writes "Universities should allow equal, unfettered access to their students by any employer whose policy with regard to sexual orientation is legal, so long as that policy is disclosed."
• 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.
• 19 December 2005 Providence Journal column "Military and colleges in duel at high court" by Melvin H. Bernstein.  Note:  The chairman of the New England region for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni points out that students are much more welcoming of the military than are faculty.
• 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.     

• 6 January 2006 The Dartmouth article "ROTC cadets to receive full financial support".  Note:  The Army is matching the arrangements already in place for ROTC students at other institutions such as Harvard and Stanford.
• 12 January 2006 GayPatriot blog item "Columbia University Wants It All".  Note:  A gay servicemember says "If Columbia University doesn’t want the federal government on its campus, fine. But they shouldn’t expect federal dollars."
• 13 January 2006 Daily Princetonian article "CAP's ROTC advocacy died down in 1980s".  Note:  When Judge Samuel Alito '72 joined Concerned Alumni of Princeton "keeping ROTC at Princeton was indeed a priority for CAP when it was founded in 1972. By the 1980s, however, ROTC appears to have disappeared as a major issue for both CAP and the University."  The first issue of CAP's magazine had an "article titled "The Prospects of ROTC," which outlined the University's recent actions against ROTC...  The 1972 Prospect article also stated that CAP opposed any further diminution of ROTC programs, and pledged to fight to protect Princeton ROTC. "Concerned Alumni of Princeton will take an active role in voicing alumni opinion on the matter," the article stated."
• 18 January 2006 Columbia Spectator op-ed "Veterans Deserve Better" by Chris Kulawik CC'08.  Note: Kulawik describes an incident on Activities Day in which a student visiting the Columbia Military Society table was "publicly insulted for being both a minority and a veteran" by three people in a "violent rant" in which "the table nearly flipped".  The student "submitted a complaint to his dean with hopes of a thorough investigation and ultimately disciplinary action against those students who harassed him" and got no response from the administration.  See responses by Jonah Birch, CC ‘05 and Todd Murphy, GS '08.
• 25 January 2006 Columbia Spectator article "A Firm Stance: CU Marine Reservist Targeted In Angry Confrontation; No Disciplinary Action Taken".  Note:  An anti-military incident recounted in an Op-ed column is covered by the Columbia student newspaper.  The Spectator claims that students urging other students to sign up for ROTC was "not allowed on campus" at the time.  This seems wrong.  Even after the 3rd Circuit court decision allowing bans on external recruiters, students always retained the freedom to urge other students to enlist to fight for their country.  After the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, the 3rd Circuit halted implementation of its ruling, removing the restriction on external recruiters.
• 25 January 2006 U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University press release "Anti-Military Discrimination at Columbia".  Note:  The group "asks that Columbia University amend its Discrimination and Harassment Policy to grant all veterans and military-related persons protected status."
• 27 January 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-ed "The Conservative Witch Hunt" by Zach Zill CC '06.  Note: One of the students who "confronted" pro-ROTC students in the "anti-ROTC incident on Activities Day" denounces the 25 January Spectator news article as part of a "witch-hunt" and denies having made offensive remarks attributed to him.
• 30 January 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Revisiting Vietnam" by Monique Dols GS '06.  Note: Dols observes that "ROTC supporters are making headway by recruiting for the Fordham University and Manhattan College ROTC programs on campus. By increasing the ranks of military personnel on campus, they are laying the groundwork for the program’s future return."  She regards this as a negative development and urges people to "expose the ugly underbelly of US aggression in the world".
• 1 February 2006 New York Sun article "Veterans Take Grievances to Columbia Provost".  Note:  The provost, who spoke passionately against ROTC on campus in May 2005, was to hear complaints about harassment.  The article lists an incorrect tally for the Columbia Senate vote on ROTC in May 2005; it was 53-10.
• 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.
• 9 February 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Sanchez Lodges Protest: Reserve Marine Files Grievance With SDA Against ISO Protest".  Note:  University spokeswoman Susan Brown said Columbia already includes military status as a protected category in its speech code, and the protection is not limited to Vietnam-era veterans.  International Socialist Organization member Monique Dols GS ’06 said post-Vietnam veterans should not have such protection since they enlisted voluntarily.
• 13 February 2006 Columbia Spectator Op-Ed "ROTC and the Ivory Tower: Cease Fire" by Adam Weinstein.  Note:  A self described "liberal war resister" suggests that if you have disagreements with current military practices "You bring ROTC back to Columbia, and you sign yourself up".  He suggests that to do otherwise is to "keep the military and the ivory tower separate and go on with your life of smug self-satisfaction" and will result in "marginalizing yourselves and alienating potential supporters".  See letter in response on 21 February.
• 21 February 2006 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."
• 21 February 2006 Columbia Spectator letter "Military Veterans Bring Diverse Voices to Columbia Community" by The Executive Board of U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University (MilVets).  Note:  The MilVets point out that Adam Weinstein’s February 13th column is an example of the political diversity of military veterans on elite campuses.
• 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".
• 23 February 2006 Columbia University statement of nondiscriminatory policies "Equal educational opportunity and student nondiscrimination policies and procedures on discrimination and harassment".  Note:  The statement begins with the words "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination".  Since the previous antidiscrimination rules had been used to argue against ROTC on the basis of discrimination against openly homosexual people in the military this wording is interesting because "Don't ask, don't tell" is the law, and there fore not unlawful. 
• 5 March 2006 Boston Globe Op-Ed "The insurrection: Harvard needed Larry Summers. The board's failure to stand by him suggests its members don't know what it takes to lead a great university" by John Silber.  Note: The past president of Boston University describes how he endured faculty revolts and made many changes, including restoring ROTC.
• 6 March 2006 Wall Street Journal column "Taliban Man at Yale" by John Fund.  Note: Fund notes the irony that "Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, is now a student at Yale while at the same time the school continues to block ROTC training from its campus and argues for the right of its law school to exclude military recruiters."  See follow-up column on 13 March.
• 6 March 2006 Supreme Court of the United States decision text "Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. (No. 04-1152)".  Note:  By an 8-0 vote the Supreme Court upheld the Solomon Amendment in a military recruiting case.  The court ruled that Congress has the constitutional right to force a university to allow military recruiting, even if no federal funding was involved. The court rejected an Amicus brief argument that Congress only intended to mandate military recruiting that fit with a university's nondiscrimination rules, since passing such a law would have been a "largely meaningless exercise".  The decision did not mention the use of the Solomon Amendment in ROTC cases, but noted "recruiters are not part of the law school". 
• 6 March 2006 New York Times article "Supreme Court Upholds Campus Military Recruiting".
• 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".
• 6 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment: Columbia Could Face Choice Between ROTC and Federal Funding".  Note:  The ruling says nothing about ROTC and the reasoning used in upholding the Solomon Amendment, that "recruiters are not part of the law school", does not apply to a full ROTC program, where instructors are faculty members and ROTC courses are in the university's list of courses.  However, the Pentagon's likely offer to Columbia was an ROTC satellite office, not a full ROTC program, for which the faculty appointment and course offering issues would not apply.
• 6 March 2006 Yale Daily News article "Supreme Court rules against law schools: Justices say military recruiters must be allowed on campus".  Note:  Yale has a different challenge to the Solomon Amendment going through the courts.  Lead plaintiff Robert Burt said that instead of arguing that the First Amendment speech guarantees trump the constitutional right of the government to raise an army there is a different right to cite: "We have a special claim that we have autonomy in running our affairs because we are a university, and there's a tradition of special respect for universities, and a special protection ... to protect students from discriminatory or demeaning behavior. That argument was simply not presented to the court, and they didn't deal with it."
• 7 March 2006 New York Sun article "High Court Opens Campuses to Military".  Note: "chairman of the Advocates for Columbia ROTC, Sean Wilkes, told The New York Sun yesterday that the ruling "adds weight to our campaign"" and Mark Xue, president of the Columbia Military Society added: "The decision does not directly apply to ROTC programs, since it has not yet been established if the argument that 'recruiters are not a part of the law school' applies to either a full or satellite ROTC office."  Also, the president of the Association of American Law Schools, Carl Monk, "told the Sun yesterday that the organization would require its members to make clear that they do not support the presence of military recruiters on their campuses" but it was not clear if the AALS would drop its requirement that accredited schools get special authorization to comply with the law instead of AALS rules.
• 7 March 2006 Daily Princetonian article "Court backs military recruiters".  Note:  "Chai Feldblum, a board member of the Forum of Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), the coalition of law schools that sued the government, said she was "completely shocked" at the unanimous opinion ... The issue here has always been 'don't ask, don't tell.' That [policy] needs to get repealed, either by being invalidated by the Supreme Court or by Congress changing the law".
• 7 March 2006 Washington Post editorial "Now Repeal the Ban".  Note:  The Post agrees that the Solomon Amendment and "Don't ask, don't tell" are both constitutional, but asserts that only a "combination of bigotry and inertia keeps the gay ban in place" and calls for Congress to repeal the "Don't ask, don't tell" law.  The Post does not discuss incremental approaches such as first making changes in areas of the military in which gender privacy issues are minimal, such as the Judge Advocate General's Corps.
• 8 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Supreme Court Upholds Solomon Amendment: Unanimous Ruling Affirms Military’s Right to Recruit on College Campuses".  Note:  ROTC opponent Nate Walker TC '07 said it was likely that the Pentagon would use the court victory to seek to restore ROTC at Columbia, while Sean Wilkes CC '06, head of Advocates for Columbia ROTC, said it was unlikely.
• 8 March 2006 Cornell Daily Sun article "ROTC Athletes Have Twice the Commitments".
• 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.
• 10 March 2006 The New Republic article "War College" by Peter Beinart.  Note:  Beinart describes the scene outside the Columbia University Senate vote on ROTC on 6 May 2005: "Outside the senate auditorium, some pro-rotc students hung a banner reading a vote for rotc is a vote for the heroes of our generation. With the Court decision as her pretext, Senator Clinton's opportunity is clear: Go to Columbia and tell its leaders that those students are right... Today, the Serviceman's Legal Defense Network--which represents gays and lesbians in the military--understands the same thing. Which is why it does not oppose rotc on campus, even as it struggles heroically against "don't ask, don't tell." It is Bollinger and Brinkley who, by shunning the military, have placed themselves in the oppositional, anti-liberal tradition of the New Left."
• 13 March 2006 Wall Street Journal column "You've Got Mail (It's From Yale): A university official calls Taliban critics "retarded" while the university maintains a stony silence" by John Fund.  Note: Fund recounts Yale responses to his 6 March column comparing Yale's welcoming of a Taliban official and its shunning of ROTC.  Fund refers to a 281 word Yale statement discussing the Taliban and ROTC, printed in a 13 March column in the American Spectator.
• 13 March 2006 American Spectator column "The Yale Colonial Office" by Jed Babbin.  Note:  Babbin quotes from an official Yale statement saying "there is a lot of mis-information out there ... that Yale does not have any ROTC program, we do."  The Yale statement goes on to describe their "ROTC program" as consisting of bussing Yale students to the ROTC program at the University of Connecticut.
• 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."
• 17 March 2006 Washington Times Op-Ed "'Deeply ashamed' of Yale" by Flagg Youngblood.  Note:  A Yale alumnus and military veteran who works at Young America's Foundation compares Yale's tolerance for a former Taliban official and its intolerance for ROTC.
• Spring 2006 Sign of Peace (Catholic Peace Fellowship) article "Saint Ignatius of Loyola and ROTC: A Report from Jesuit Campuses".  Note:  Despite the Jesuit movement being founded by a wounded veteran, and 26 of 28 Jesuit colleges in the US having military training, the article asserts that there are "contradictions of Jesuit Universities hosting ROTC".
• 22 March 2006 Columbia Spectator column "Rumsfeld 1, Columbia 0" by Chris Kulawik CC '08.  Note: Kulawik points out that Columbia has many programs that discriminate by race and gender and concludes that to "claim that ROTC is the only such case ... is blatant hypocrisy".  He also recounts how anti-ROTC students told him that “The racist military takes advantage of minority students; they aren’t able to understand what exactly they’re getting into.”
• 22 March 2006 Yale Daily News editorial "FAIR fight should not be limited to Yale Law".  Note:  The editors expect the remaining lawsuit about the Solomon Amendment "to prove futile" and suggest that Yale lobby the executive branch and Congress to change "the code that governs military recruiting".
• 24 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Discrimination Policy Amended: New Policy Wording Adds Military Status to Protected Group List".  Note:  When Columbia revised its antidiscrimination rules to include all military veterans it began the statement with the words "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination".  Since the previous antidiscrimination rules had been used to argue against ROTC on the basis of discrimination against openly homosexual people in the military this wording is interesting because "Don't ask, don't tell" is the law, and therefore not unlawful.  However, this Spectator article adds another possible explanation.  University spokesperson Susan Brown said that the new statement "is a semantic clarification, not a policy shift. New York State Law had already held military status as a protected category, and the old policy included “any other legally protected status”".  This suggests the possibility that Columbia may have been trying to include in its policy all forms of unlawful discrimination without meaning to accept forms of discrimination mandated for the military by federal law, but Columbia has not commented more definitively on the wording change.
• 24 March 2006 Columbia Spectator editorial "Opportunity Disguised".  Note:  "Getting as many liberal-minded Columbia lawyers as possible, both gay and straight, into the military’s judge advocate general corps would be one of the best ways to turn the tide against “don’t ask, don’t tell” ... Shunting ROTC off to Fordham is a great symbolic way to protest the military’s policies, but it does very little to accomplish real progress. Increasing Columbia’s involvement with the military through recruiting and ROTC might rankle some, but it would be the best way for Columbians to work for justice."
• 27 March 2006 Washington Square News (NYU) column "No dissent in military" by Eric Moskowitz.  Note:  Moskowitz suggests that the Solomon Amendment will be used to restore ROTC to elite colleges and the presence of graduates of these colleges will result in a greater acceptance of gays in the military.
• 29 March 2006 Washington Square News (NYU) Op-Ed "Military leadership should reflect a more diverse population" by Stephen Trynosky.  Note: An ROTC graduate observes that many people from New York City enter the military as enlisted soldiers, but there are few officers from NYC.
• 31 March 2006 Yale Daily News Op-Ed "University must address Hashemi issue head-on" by John Fund.  Note: Fund, a Wall Street Journal columnist, recounts a Yale College Council meeting at which a Yale professor referred to Yale's silence over the Taliban case: "Yale won't allow ROTC on campus, but it wants to act like the Pentagon when it comes to information control".
• 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.
• 5 April 2006 Detroit News column "Military academy attracts new 'greatest generation'" by Thomas Bray.  Note: Bray observes that 62% of the Army's officers come from ROTC programs "which been making something of a comeback on college campuses" and notes the student-led effort to return ROTC to Columbia.
• 6 April 2006 FrontPage magazine article "Curricula Rivalries" by Michael Tremoglie.  Note:  The author recounts the history of military officer commissioning on civilian campuses, beginning with Norwich University in 1819.  He also recounts the anti-ROTC protests at the City College of New York in the 1930s: "Unlike many of the students and faculty of CCNY, the college’s president, Frederick Robinson, favored ROTC and patriotism. However, by 1938, Robinson resigned from CCNY after being persecuted by students and faculty".
• 7 April 2006 Colgate Maroon-News Op-Ed "ROTC: Return of the Corps? Colgate Should Reconnect With American Military" by Douglas J. MacDonald.
• 24 April 2006 Associated Press article "Federal judge throws out suit challenging 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'".  Note:  The government had argued that the law "rationally furthers the government's interest in maintaining unit cohesion, reducing sexual tensions and promoting personal privacy".
• 28 April 2006 WNET TV (Channel 13) NY Voices report "Campus Politics".  Note:  Sean Wilkes CC '06, chairman of Advocates for Columbia ROTC discusses the history of ROTC at Columbia.
• 28 April 2006 Chicago Maroon editorial "Bring ROTC Back to Campus". 
• May 2006 book "AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service – and How it Hurts Our Country" by Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer.
• 10 May 2006 My Learning Curve blog item "Shane Hachey (GS 04) letter to Columbia University Senate.  Subject: Columbia v. The Military".  Note:  On the first anniversary of the Columbia University Senate vote against ROTC Hachey notes that "this vote had no tangible effect on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. It did not "send a message" to anyone in Washington except that our university is hostile to the military".
• 16 May 2006 Wall Street Journal article "Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines".  Note: The Journal reviews Marc Wortman's book "The Millionaires' Unit", which recounts how a group of Yale undergraduates organized a aerial defense unit in 1916 with little help from the Navy.  After the United States entered World War I in 1917, the Navy made the young aviators commissioned officers and many went on to very distinguished careers, including in the Pentagon.
• 17 May 2006 New York Sun article "At Columbia, First ROTC Event Since '72".  Note:  In contrast to the annual ROTC Commissioning ceremony at Harvard, "the commissioning ceremony is sponsored by the students, not the university."  Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley, who spoke passionately against ROTC at the 6 May 2005 Columbia University Senate meeting that rejected ROTC, will attend the 19 May commissioning.
• 18 May 2006 The Dartmouth article "Three seniors to accept ROTC Army commission".  Note:  The three "are ranked among the top five percent of 4,500 Cadets on the National Order of Merit List".
• 25 May 2006 Boston Globe Op-Ed "A call to serve" by Frank Schaeffer and Kathy Roth Douquet.  Note:  The authors of AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service -- and How It Hurts Our Country write "a commencement speech a leader of either political party should make at an Ivy League college" advocating serving in the military.  See letters on 28 May.
• 28 May 2006 Boston Globe letters "The call to volunt