Just three weeks after its University Senate voted to allow ROTC back, Columbia University is officially recognizing the Naval Reserved Officers Training Corps. Columbia President Lee Bollinger said in a statement, "Repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law provided a historic opportunity for our nation to live up to its ideals of equality and also for universities to reconsider their relationships with the military. After many months of campus discussion, open forums, and a strongly favorable vote in the University Senate, together with consultation with the University’s Council of Deans, it is clear that the time has come for Columbia to reengage with the military program of ROTC. I believe that it is the right course of action for Columbia to formalize this recognition and thereby add to the diversity of choices for education and public service we make available to our students."
Bollinger also sent an email to the university, "Formal recognition of Naval ROTC by Columbia will resume after the effective date, expected later this year, of the repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law that disqualified openly gay men and lesbians from military service."
Columbia's statement also explained:
Columbia’s Navy and Marine Corps-option midshipmen will participate in Naval ROTC through the NROTC unit hosted at the SUNY Maritime College in Throgs Neck, Queens. They will join Columbia’s Army and Air Force ROTC members who will continue to train, as they do currently, with other New York area students at consortium units at Fordham University and Manhattan College. At present, there are nine Columbia and Barnard College students participating in these New York consortium units. The new agreement between the Navy and Columbia will provide that NROTC active duty Navy and Marine Corps officers will be able to meet with Columbia NROTC midshipmen on the Columbia campus in spaces furnished by Columbia.
In his statement and email, Bollinger made a point to emphasize the school's long, proud history with the military, but Columbia has also had a storied history in student activism against the Vietnam War and the military, with one of its students later helping form the activist group the Weather Underground (which blew up a Greenwich Village townhouse and set off a bomb at NYPD headquarters). A former Weatherground member who lives near Columbia told the NY Times earlier this month, "The U.S. armed forces are a blight on the planet. I don’t support soldiers — I think they’re war criminals. So obviously, I’m against R.O.T.C. coming back."
