Faculty Senate Attacks Cleary for Keeping ROTC at CSUN

Members of the Cal State Northridge Faculty Senate criticized university President James W. Cleary Thursday for his decision to continue ROTC at the San Fernando Valley campus despite a faculty recommendation to abolish the military training programs.

However, a resolution to take their concerns directly to the CSU Academic Senate, which will consider the ROTC issue next month, failed for lack of a quorum among the 86-member faculty organization. Thursday’s meeting was the first public confrontation between the faculty and the president since Cleary announced his decision on Monday.

Foreign language professor Edda Spielman said Cleary’s decision “simply did not make any sense” and was “tantamount . . . to putting an official stamp of approval on certain kinds of discrimination.”

Faculty had urged Cleary to ban the programs because the U.S. Department of Defense excludes people who are openly homosexual from military service.

Currently 42 CSUN students participate in ROTC.

Cleary said in a statement Monday that although he abhorred the discriminatory policy, he did not believe a state university had a legal right to attempt to change policies dictated by federal law. He said he based his decision on an opinion from a California State University system lawyer.

“I am not in a position to challenge this,” Cleary told the Senate on Thursday.

Lawrence Littwin, a political science professor, chastised Cleary for accepting the CSU counsel’s opinion without question.

“This is an age when people can emerge from the bureaucracy,” Littwin said.

Littwin and other faculty members bolstered their arguments by reading from the university’s 1976 contract with the Air Force ROTC, which gives either party the right to terminate the relationship with six months notice, regardless of motive.

Students who spoke during the Faculty Senate meeting asked that Cleary reconsider his position.

“President Cleary could’ve taken a gigantic step toward social change” by adopting the recommendation from the faculty and a similar one drafted by students, said junior Brent Larson. “Instead he chose to ignore them.”

Many faculty members spoke in support of the resolution to the statewide Academic Senate, which will consider a proposal in early May to strip ROTC of much of its campus status systemwide.

However, the Senate lost its quorum before the issue could be voted on because many faculty members left the meeting. During recent months quorums frequently have been lost during discussion of controversial issues, which often are delayed until late in the afternoon.