Gays Call On UCLA to Drop ROTC

Using newspaper advertisements and a statement signed by a host of politicians and entertainment figures, gay rights advocates are pressuring UCLA administrators to drop the campus ROTC programs.

Although recruits to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps are no longer asked about their sexual orientation under new military regulations, openly gay cadets remain subject to discharge.

“What you have is an integral part of the university that has a no-gays-and-lesbians-need-apply sign,” said David Mixner, who Monday released a “statement of conscience” signed by more than 2,000 local leaders in a variety of fields. “It shouldn’t be a university-financed program since it violates their own policy on discrimination.”

Advertisements in today’s editions of the UCLA campus paper, the Daily Bruin, and the West Coast edition of the New York Times urge the university to drop ROTC because it conflicts with university policy barring discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

About 150 UCLA students are enrolled in ROTC programs, which offer military training and scholarships to cadets in return for military service after graduation. The university provides ROTC with classroom and office space as well as secretarial services.

ROTC spokesmen had no comment except that they were bound by military policy. UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young’s only response was to release a copy of a letter recently sent to the Department of Defense in which he urges the military to stop discriminating against gays.

According to Mixner, those supporting the protest include several Los Angeles City Council members, county Supervisors Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, state legislators and such entertainment industry figures as Whoopi Goldberg, Spike Lee, Steve Tisch, Alec Baldwin and Sharon Stone.

Efforts to drive ROTC programs off college campuses because of the military’s anti-gay policies have been under way for years. A small number of universities, including several Ivy League institutions, have dropped ROTC as a result.