Harvard will re-establish ROTC program

From The Boston Globe: Harvard University president Drew Faust and U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus have ended a nearly 40-year standoff by signing an agreement to reestablish the Naval ROTC program on the Cambridge campus. The agreement upholds Harvard’s promise to bring ROTC back to campus following the repeal by Congress of a ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
RELATED: U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is calling on Yale University to follow Harvard's lead and welcome the Reserve Officer Training Corps back to the New Haven, Conn., campus. Kerry is an alumnus of Yale. DECEMBER 2010...from The Boston Globe: Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., will welcome ROTC back to campus now that Congress has repealed a ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, university president Drew Faust says. The move will end a four-decade standoff between one of the nation’s most prestigious universities and its armed forces.

SEPTEMBER 2010...from The Boston Globe: Harvard University, which expelled ROTC four decades ago, will welcome the military training program back to campus only when the ban on openly gay and lesbian service members is repealed. Harvard had expelled ROTC from campus in 1969, amid protests against the Vietnam War. Today, university president Drew Gilpin Faust says, there is only one reason ROTC is barred from campus: The issue is “entirely linked to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ ’’ She saysHarvard bars discrimination by all undergraduate groups.