Controversy at Harvard

During the Vietnam War, the Harvard administration, under intense pressure from student protesters, banned ROTC from campus, as did other Ivy League schools. Those who wanted to participate had to join a program at nearby MIT.

There was another ROTC flap in the early 1990s over the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military, which some thought discriminatory. "The left-wing faculty went up in orbit," is the way Paul Mawn puts it. "In the 1970s, it was the undergraduates who got everything started. Now, it's flipped. It's the tenured faculty who are very vocal."

Mawn, a retired Navy captain, graduated from Harvard in 1963 as a ROTC cadet. He is also chairman of the Advocates for Harvard ROTC, whose 2,200 members would like to bring cadets back to campus.

Even though the Reserve Officers Training Corps was kicked off the Harvard campus in 1969, Mawn wants people to know that Harvard students have long served in the military, many of them through the ROTC program. He thinks it's petty and wrong that Harvard does not allow the ROTC students - who still participate through MIT - to post notices on bulletin boards or mention ROTC in the yearbook. Harvard also refuses to pay the $200,000 in administrative fees to MIT: Harvard alumni, through the Advocates, chip in and pay it each year.

Still, Larry Summers was friendly to the group during his five years as Harvard's president. Until he stepped down in 2006, Summers was the keynote speaker at ceremonies in Harvard Yard, where ROTC cadets receive their commission every May. Mawn says Summers also allowed ROTC to be included in the yearbook.

"The Advocates are trying to promote the acceptance and tolerance of Harvard undergraduates to serve their country, and we'd like to encourage more Harvard students to participate," says Mawn. "The military is not for everyone, but someone has to do it."

Still, the number of Harvard cadets dwarfs the other six schools in the MIT consortium: there are now 22 enrolled, compared to 12 MIT cadets. Lieutenant Colonel Leo McGonagle, who heads the MIT consortium, says the number of Harvard students has doubled in three years. "Would I love to see Harvard allow ROTC on campus? Absolutely. But if that's not going to happen in the short term, that's OK because Harvard is producing some fantastic Army officers right now."

BELLA ENGLISH