‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ ruling raises questions about ROTC

The don’t ask, don’t tell policy prevents military officials from inquiring about soldiers’ sexual orientation and prohibits those who are openly gay or bisexual from serving in the military. The federal law also applies to University-level ROTC programs.

Lt. Col. John Stark, director of army officer training and commissioning for Princeton’s ROTC program, expressed hope that the ROTC program’s status on campus would benefit from the ruling.

“I think it’s the first step in making us part of the mainstream on campus,” he said in an interview hours after the ruling. “Hopefully the administration will see it the same way.”

Under a 1972 agreement between the University and the Army, Princeton ROTC is an “outside organization,” though it maintains a program on campus, University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 explained said. The University provides the program with “the necessary classrooms, administrative offices, office equipment, storage space and other required facilities” under the agreement, he added.

Stark told The Daily Princetonian in September that certain members of the administration had “explicitly expressed” that ROTC’s limited position was due to the military’s perceived discriminatory stance.

“Specifically because of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy, we are not considered a fully equal group on campus,” Stark said at the time.

But Durkee said on Tuesday that “the policy doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the relationship” between the University and ROTC, though he noted that “it would be a good outcome ... if that policy were to be reversed.”

“It has always been unfortunate that ROTC followed a policy that was in conflict with a basic University policy on non-discrimination,” he added.

Still, Stark said he thought that the policy could be misconstrued.

“The don’t ask, don’t tell policy does give some people who are unfamiliar with military law the impression that the military has some kind of prejudice against certain groups of people,” he said last month. “It certainly affects our access to certain things here at Princeton,” he added.

Cadet Walter Snook ’13 said on Tuesday that “respect for all people” is an important military value.

“Our job is to respect and uphold the law,” he added.

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Vice President for Campus Life Cynthia Cherrey and President Shirley Tilghman were not available for comment Tuesday afternoon.

“I think if the policy changed, some people — especially those with more liberal values — would more readily welcome the military as an equal partner with groups that share those values,” Stark said in September.

The court’s injunction does not mean that the policy has been permanently overturned, however. The U.S. Justice Department can appeal Phillips’ injunction within the next 60 days. The court ruling followed a Sept. 9 decision in which Philips declared the law unconstitutional.

Since the late 1960s, when antiwar protests erupted at the nation’s colleges in reaction to the U.S. bombing of Cambodia in 1968, several college ROTC programs have either suffered decreased recognition on campuses or have closed down altogether. Princeton is one of only two Ivy League schools that maintained an on-campus military training program.

The University was only able to keep the ROTC program in place on the condition of “an overall reduced status,” Stark said in an e-mail.

Snook said he thought that today’s Princeton ROTC is in a better position compared to those at other Ivy League schools.

“We enjoy a privileged relationship with the administration,” he said.

The last official review of the University’s relationship with ROTC took place in 1989 and centered on whether the Defense Department’s policy on homosexuality violated the University’s non-discrimination policy. Though the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was not enacted until 1993, the Defense Department had long banned gays from serving in the military.

After the review, the University decided that the non-discrimination policy did not apply to ROTC because the University did not directly control the program. It could continue to aid the program as long as the University “distance[d] itself from the unit’s discriminatory practices to avoid complicity in them,” according to the review.

Regardless of the public reaction to the groundbreaking legal precedent set on Tuesday, Stark emphasized that cadets’ daily lives will remain largely the same. “For now our mission to train continues unchanged,” he said.

“We treat people with respect,” he continued. “And now we have a law that allows us to do that even better.”