Date: 2 Feb 1995 17:45:39 U From: "Tom Gerace" Harvard Cuts ROTC Tie Harvard University announced yesterday that it would end all financial support of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at the end of this academic year. Details of the decision are included in a _Harvard Crimson_ article that follows this note. In 1969, the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted to withdraw all curricular and academic status from ROTC (this decision arose in response to protests against the Vietnam War). Seven years later, FAS voted to allow students to participate in ROTC units at MIT. In February, 1984, FAS voted to reimburse MIT for the cost of including FAS students in ROTC units at MIT (approximately $132,000/year). Beginning in 1989, a number of l/b/g groups and individuals began to protest the University support of the ROTC program. In October, 1994, the Committee to End Discrimination By Harvard (a group of concerned gay and straight faculty, alumni, and students) was formed to lobby the administration to end all forms of support of ROTC. Please don't hesitate to contact me for additional information about the Committee's efforts or the Harvard decision. Regards, - Tom Gerace, Chair Committee to End Discrimination By Harvard Tom_Gerace@hbsqm1.hbs.harvard.edu -------------------------------------------------- The Harvard Crimson Feb. 2, 1995 Altered Plan Cuts Financial Ties to ROTC -by Jonathan N. Axelrod and Todd F. Braunstein In response to faculty criticism of President Neil L. Rudenstine's report on ROTC, Acting President Albert Carnesale yesterday released an addendum that would entirely cut the University's financial ties to the program. In a statement issued yesterday, Carnesale proposes the creation of a trust fund--to be administered outside Harvard--which would fund student participation in MIT's ROTC program through alumni donations. In Rudenstine's November 23 statement on ROTC, he proposed that the University administer the pool of alumni contributions. Carnesale said the donated money would be put in a charitable trust at a bank and administered by the alums who establish it-- an arrangement he said is acceptable to MIT. In a further clarification of the Rudenstine report, Carnesale also wrote that the ROTC commissioning ceremony would be allowed to continue at Commencement. Carnesale said he drafted yesterday's supplementary decision without Rudenstine's input. He also said that the decision was made by Harvard and not influenced by MIT. "This is my decision, I take responsibility for it," the acting president said in an interview yesterday afternoon. The final policy proposal must still be ratified by the Corporation, the more powerful of Harvard's two governing bodies. A vote on the proposal will probably come at next week's Corporation meeting, Carnesale said in a telephone interview last night. Carnesale's addendum represents a partial reversal from his statements at a December faculty meeting of the full faculty. Then, Carnesale said that a fund administered outside of Harvard would not provide an adequate guarantee that the funding would continue, and he recommended that the University not establish such a fund. "At the time I represented the report as I understood it and expressed my preference that the fund go through Harvard," he said. "I am now confident that [the fund's stability] will be assured because we've had individuals step forward and make the commitment." At the original faculty meeting, about a dozen members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) lambasted Rudenstine's original compromise as being inconsistent with the University's non-discrimination policy. But faculty members interviewed yesterday expressed satisfaction with Carnesale's new proposal. "I am most pleased because this supplementary statement will remove Harvard's financial support of this discriminatory ROTC program," Professor of Philosophy Warren D. Goldfarb '69, a critic of Rudenstine's original proposal, said last night. Potebnja Professor or Ukrainian Philology Michael S. Flier, who blasted the original report at the faculty meeting also said he was "very pleased." "It seems to me that what this report [indicates is] that Carnesale is giving very serious consideration to the views of the members of the faculty," Flier said in a telephone interview last night. Baird Professor of Science Gary J. Feldman, a member of the faculty council, said he agreed. "It was a recommendation some of us made to President Rudenstine originally," Feldman said. Thomas A. Gerace '93, a member of the Committee to End Discrimination by Harvard, agreed. In a statement yesterday, Gerace wrote that the committee "applauded" the decision. Faculty members also supported Carnesale's decision to hold the ROTC commissioning ceremony during Commencement. "Given that ROTC will no longer be a University-supported enterprise, it seems that [it is] their right as an organized group," Goldfarb said. But at least one faculty member was not satisfied with the proposal. "I am in total agreement with point two," Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 said in an interview last night. "Point one is an embarrassing accommodation to an extremely foolish faculty vote." Mansfield refused to either condemn or endorse the ROTC addendum. Carnesale said that he discussed the matter with several members of the FAS, including Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, but that he ultimately made the decision himself. Knowles did not return a phone call to his home last night. According to Carnesale the Corporation learned of the addendum only yesterday. "The Corporation has the authority to decide on this," said Carnesale. "They received this today so they have not yet acted on it."