Harvard Cooperates with ROTC...Under Duress
More from the Kremlin-on-the-Charles, gentle reader!
Hm, Harvard had to be pressured into spending a day celebrating the United States Constitution. It should come as no surprise that it likewise had to be pressured into cooperating with the ROTC (link xie-xie to Bruce Chang).
Of course, there are a few reasons for Harvard reversing its previous ban on military recruiters on campus. What are these reasons? There are about 400 million of them. Each one comes with a dollar sign in front of it.
| Harvard receives more than $400 million per year in federal grants. Meanwhile, University President Lawrence H. Summers said in a statement tonight that Harvard will file a friend-of-the-court brief tomorrow urging the Supreme Court to invalidate the Solomon Amendment, the statute passed by Congress in 1994 that allows the secretary of defense to block federal funds to universities that deny military recruiters “equal access” to campuses. |
Basically, the whole thing seems to translate from Harvardese into English as: "Uncle Sam, we hate you and your mindless military minions! We will continue to call you horrible names and depict you on campus and off as warmongering imperialists with itchy trigger fingers and a lack of any mental capacity, since we are far and away your intellectual betters. Now, please give us our accustomed millions in federal monies so we may continue to live in our Ivy League comfort and defame you at every given opportunity. And if you won't give us your money because we won't let your military recruiters on campus, then we'll sue you."
There is a relevant post on this issue from David Frum (a Harvard alum himself) at National Review Online. He notes Harvard students and alums who have gone into the armed services, some of whom are currently serving abroad.
FYI, if anyone cares to notice, there's a gate to Harvard Yard. It has an inscription on it that reads: "Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind."
UPDATE: Yale joins the fray on Harvard's side (of course) with not one, but two legal actions:
| Yale filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday arguing that law schools have the right to ban military recruiters from their campuses without facing a loss of government funding, marking the first time the University itself has taken a stance on the issue in court. A group of 44 Yale Law School professors, who have taken their own legal action on the issue, filed its own brief Tuesday separate from the University but regarding the same suit... |