This contentious subject is at the forefront at Cortland right now. Strong opinions abound. I believe it is unavoidable that this issue becomes an referendum on one’s opinion about the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. I also think it is likely to follow lines between conservative and liberal viewpoints.

So here’s my two cents.

1. The military has long used ROTC and the GI Bill, with the funding they offer for higher education, as a recruitment incentive. For me the issue is not whether or not veterans deserve this kind of support in return for their military service. IMHO many Americans deserve a shot at a college education. Why should they have to join the military to get it? I imagine that even the Pentagon would agree that it does not want people signing up so that they can go to college. The military needs a volunteer army not a mercanary one. Part of the problem in Vietnam was that many college kids were able to avoid the draft due to their deferrment. If you could afford to go to college, you could avoid the draft. Well, we don’t have a draft (yet), but if you can’t afford to go to college then you might end up in the military as a way of getting there anyway.

So while I like the idea of GIs getting support to go to college, using this as a recruitment tool is bad, in my view, for both the military and higher education.

2. The military’s policy on homosexuality remains in violation to College and University policies regarding discriminatory practices. This has long been the foundation for objections to ROTC. Obviously though this is a matter of interpretation or something as other colleges with similar policies permit ROTC. For some people, this may be the key issues, but for myself I see this discriminatory policy as indicative of larger moral and ethical objections I have to military culture and practice.

3. However, I am not a humanist, and I have little interest in making arguments based on Universalist moral or ethical principals. From my view this is all about politics and power with ideological moralizing as window-dressing. To have this conversation on any other level is just playtime and a dancing around of a subject we all know is ugly. There are two things here.

First, we are all aware of the growing troop problem. The military is pushing to gain footholds on campuses around the country in what is likely an attempt to step up recruitment to support the continuation and likely expansion of foreign wars. Schools attend by working class students such as Cortland are an obvious target. Almost all of my students have jobs. I’d hate to see them join the military so that they could afford their degrees.

I can tell you right now that a BA from SUNY Cortland is not worth risking your life for. If you want to join military because you think its the right thing to do, fine. I disagree with you, but fine. But don’t do it to get paid.

Second, I think that ROTC thing is also part of a general push by conservatives to gain more control over higher education. We’ve seen this whole thing going on for a while regarding the alledged lack of conservative viewpoints among college faculty.  I’ve been down this path before. There are two reasons why there are fewer conservatives in the humanities (which I think is the case, but I don’t know about the rest of academica). First if you’re bright enough to be successful as a humanities professor, you almost certainly could find a better paying career as a lawyer, accountant, MBA or something. We all care about money, but conservatives care more, enough to guide their careers by it. Second, humanistic education is founded upon pluralism, upon considering multiple alternatives, on recognizing that sometimes there is no right answer. This is antithetical to conservatism, which proclaims itself proudly anti-intellectual (Bush being the obvious example).

Since conservatives aren’t going to start signing up to become academics any time soon, different strategies need to be employed. Hence conservatives have used their power in governments, on boards of trustees, in research foundations, and within higher education administration to set political agendas and increase conservative presence on campus.

After all, where do you think this call for ROTC on our campus came from?
Was there a petition from students?
Was there a movement among faculty?

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