University of Chicago ROTC Coverage

• 28 April 2006 Chicago Maroon editorial "Bring ROTC Back to Campus". 
• 1 June 2007 Chicago Maroon column "ROTC bans counterproductive to their cause" by Alec Brandon.  Note:  Brandon writes "Without a doubt, the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is discriminatory, but it is just silly to respond to a discriminatory policy with your own version of a discriminatory policy."  (The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is specified by federal law.)
• 16 October 2007 Chicago Maroon editorial "Allow room for ROTC".  Note:  The student newspaper of the University of Chicago called for the university to reverse its exclusion of ROTC.
• 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."
• 29 September 2010 Lecture at Duke University by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.  Note:  Secretary Gates said "The state of Alabama, with a population of less than 5 million, has 10 Army ROTC host programs.  The Los Angeles metro area, population over 12 million, has four host ROTC programs.  And the Chicago metro area, population 9 million, has 3.  It makes sense to focus on places where space is ample and inexpensive, where candidates are most inclined sign up and pursue a career in uniform.  But there is a risk over time of developing a cadre of military leaders that politically, culturally, and geographically have less and less in common with the people they have sworn to defend.  I’d like to close by speaking about another narrow sliver of our population, those attending and graduating from our nation’s most selective and academically demanding universities, such as Duke.  In short, students like many of you.  Over the past generation many commentators have lamented the absence of ROTC from the Ivy League and other selective universities.  Institutions that used to send hundreds of graduates into the armed forces, but now struggle to commission a handful of officers every year.  University faculty and administrators banned ROTC from many elite campuses during the Vietnam War and continued to bar the military based on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law – with Duke being a notable and admirable exception with your three host programs.  I am encouraged that several other comparable universities – with the urging of some of their most prominent alumni, including the President of the United States – are at least re-considering their position on military recruiting and officer training – a situation that has been neither good for the academy or the country. But a return of ROTC back to some of these campuses will not do much good without the willingness of our nation’s most gifted students to step forward.  Men and women such as you."
• 27 October 2014 Chicago Maroon article "Student group looks to restart ROTC on campus".  Note:  "UChicago Students for ROTC Reform" aims to replace the off-campus ROTC option with on campus ROTC. To get around the problem of students interested in ROTC having chosen other colleges, the group "found around 20 to 30 students who already have plans to enter the military or would be interested if ROTC were available" at the University of Chicago.
• 15 April 2016 Chicago Maroon article "After Decades of Absence and Years Commuting, ROTC is Back on Campus".  Note:  The program has classes on campus and is supervised by Major Michael Kesl, who also an Assistant Professor of Military Science at University of Illinois, Chicago.

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