Forum to discuss ROTC, military recruiting on campus

Chancellor John D. Wiley will participate in a public forum today (April 20) with a coalition of student groups concerned over the presence of military recruiters and ROTC programs on campus.

The session will be at 3 p.m in Great Hall of Memorial Union. The registered student organization Stop the War! requested the meeting during an April 14 Bascom Hall protest. The forum is free and open to the public.

The session is expected to include opening statements from Wiley and organizers of Stop the War!, followed by time for questions from the audience. Donald Downs, professor of political science and noted First Amendment activist, will serve as moderator.

The U.S. military’s exclusion of gays and lesbians from military service has been the target of protests on college campuses across the country for nearly two decades. Many of the protests center around campus-based ROTC programs and on the presence of military recruiters at college career fairs.

In 1989, both students and faculty at UW–Madison approved resolutions that called for an end to the university’s contract with ROTC unless the military agreed to accept homosexuals. The UW System Board of Regents ruled that ROTC should be allowed to remain, but urged UW leaders to lobby Congress for a change in the military’s restrictions.

In April 1990, UW System President Kenneth Shaw introduced a resolution to the American Association of Universities, which was approved, outlining university opposition to the military’s discriminatory policy. That resolution then prompted leaders of four national higher education groups to write a letter to then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney asking he rethink the policy.

Since that time, the issue has been protested on numerous occasions at UW–Madison and nationally, but there has been no substantive change in the military’s policies.

Universities currently fall under rules of the 1996 Solomon Amendment, a federal law that would deny federal funding to institutions of higher learning that prohibit or prevent ROTC or military recruitment on campus. A challenge to the Solomon Amendment is currently in the federal courts and is expected to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier this year, a U.S. Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania ruled that universities that bar military recruiters based on their discrimination against gays and lesbians cannot be stripped of federal funding.

However, the American Council on Education, the major coordinating body for the nation’s universities, is cautioning campuses to comply with the federal law until the issue is formally resolved in the courts.

Wiley emphasizes that the university’s current practices do not endorse the military policy of refusing to admit openly gay or lesbian individuals. In fact, the military’s policy runs counter to policies endorsed by the university administration, faculty, academic staff, Board of Regents, as well as state law.

Wiley also notes that a portion of the campus community, including students and staff, are either on active duty in the military, or recently returning home from military service. A total of 564 students are either veterans, members of the National Guard or participants in ROTC. Of them, 27 students and 35 faculty or staff members are on active duty. UW–Madison has 216 registered ROTC cadets.