CSU Faculty Senate Urges Campuses to Throw Out ROTC

Even as public support for the U.S. military reaches its highest level in years in the afterglow of the Persian Gulf victory, the California State University faculty senate is urging that ROTC programs be ordered off Cal State campuses.

Prompted by protests at Cal State Northridge last year against the Defense Department policy barring homosexuals from the military, the system’s Academic Senate adopted a resolution Friday urging faculty and administrators at the 20 campuses to begin phasing out military training programs immediately.

The resolution is advisory only, leaving the issue to each of the campuses. The senate also asked the system’s Board of Trustees to pass a resolution at its meeting later this month making elimination of ROTC mandatory throughout the system.

In recent months, two Cal State campuses independently decided to cancel their contracts with ROTC, and several other schools--including CSUN--formally condemned the Defense Department policy.

Homosexual students may take ROTC--Reserve Officer Training Corps--academic courses but are barred by the policy from accepting ROTC scholarships and cannot be commissioned as officers after graduation.

Despite the current surge of public support for the military, backers of the movement to banish ROTC said they felt such a ban was needed even more now, in the wake of allegations that reservists who divulged their homosexuality were sent to fight against Iraq anyway. The military has denied that happened.

“There’s really hypocrisy there,” said Lester Pincu, one of the university system’s academic senators and a criminology professor at Fresno State. “They’re saying it’s not OK in peacetime but it is in wartime, which is really what the military is all about.”

Last May, despite pressure from faculty and students at several campuses who maintained that the military’s ban against homosexuals violates university anti-discrimination policies, the Academic Senate voted to give the Defense Department one more chance. A letter from the system chancellor’s office asked the department to amend its policy. The Defense Department responded in June that it had no intention of changing its position. The department maintains the ban is necessary to maintain troop discipline and morale.

CSUN faculty members, whose vote to end ROTC was vetoed by the college president last April, said the Academic Senate decision probably will reinvigorate their efforts to end affiliation with the program. “I’m sure it will come up on our campus again,” said CSUN’s faculty senate president, Albert Baca. “People were waiting to see what would happen at the statewide level.”

Campus spokeswoman Ann Salisbury said Monday that President James W. Cleary had no comment on the Academic Senate resolution beyond the statement he issued at the time of his veto.

At that time, Cleary said he questioned the legality and wisdom of a state agency barring a federal program, especially when it could jeopardize future federal funding.

Other Cal State campuses that have taken action against ROTC in recent months include San Francisco State, which ended its links to the program, and Cal State Los Angeles, where the faculty voted to cancel ROTC but a decision from the campus president is pending, Pincu said.

Chico State voted to bar ROTC from campus in January, 1992, if the Defense Department policy is not altered by then, Pincu said.

Fresno State was scheduled to consider the issue late Monday, with some gay rights activists calling for the resignation of college President Harold Haak, charging that he was not taking a strong enough stand.