Columbia's University Senate Votes To Allow ROTC Back

Photograph of Mark Rudd protesting at Columbia University in 1968

Columbia University may see the return of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which was forced off campus after the heated student protests during the 1960s sparked partly by the school's relationship with the Vietnam War>. The University Senate voted 51-17 (with an abstention) to approve a resolution which states, "Columbia University welcomes the opportunity to explore mutually beneficial relationships with the Armed Forces of the United States, including participation in the programs of the Reserve Officers Training Corps."

Tao Tan, CC '07, Business '11 and the chair of the senate’s Student Affairs Committee, told the Columbia Spectator, "This is a great day for Columbia. This is a great day for America. We have put behind us a painful disagreement of our past and have taken a step forward toward our shared future." The NY Times looks at Columbia's protest-filled history:In the popular eye, and in history texts, Columbia’s relations with the military have been more or less defined by the decision in 1969 to ban R.O.T.C. The move came at the end of a period of pitched student activism — the Spirit of ’68, as it was known — that included student strikes and the occupation of Hamilton Hall, a main academic building. On Friday, the sense of generational turnabout in the Senate vote was not lost on the students of today.

“So often when people mention Columbia, the Spirit of ’68 comes up — it always resonates,” said Kenny Durrell, 21, a student senator who voted against the resolution. “Now we’ve contradicted that, or at least we’ve shown a willingness to re-examine how the military interacts with students and with bodies of higher education.”The repeal of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policyhelped bring about more support for ROTC.

During the 1960s protests, the activist group the Students for a Democratic Society, was very active in organizing the students, with one student helping found the Weather Underground after being kicked out of Columbia. One former Weatherman near Columbia told the NY Times, "The U.S. armed forces are a blight on the planet. I don’t support soldiers — I think they’re war criminals. So obviously, I’m against R.O.T.C. coming back."