Academic

CHANGE: Burr, Ensign back Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell Repeal. It passed 65-31. Meanwhile, a reader ??

By Glenn Reynolds

CHANGE: Burr, Ensign back Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal. It passed 65-31.

Meanwhile, a reader — a retired Navy JAG officer — emails:

For 17 years colleges and universities have used Bill Clinton?s incoherent Don?t-Ask-Don?t-Tell law (which they disingenuously called a ?military policy?) to attempt to keep recruiters off undergraduate and graduate campuses, and stymie any efforts to establish ROTC programs. Now that the law will be undone when the President puts pen to paper, where are all the announcements from these schools that the military is welcome, that they are seeking to have ROTC programs, that they will be encouraging military service of their graduates? Perhaps being a weekend and the holidays it is too soon to expect such announcements, but does anyone seriously think such a change will be forthcoming?

The DADT law was convenient pretense and cover for those who loathe the military and always have. Will they now change their ways? Or will some new ?principled? basis for their bigotry (e.g., Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, lack of natural fibers in uniforms, etc.) now be offered up to maintain their anti-military practices and rhetoric?

I’m going with the natural-fibers thing. But maybe I’ll be wrong. Columbia certainly has the room for a new ROTC center now . . . .

Some related thoughts here. That’s the Google cache, as this piece is messed up on the Post website at the moment.

UPDATE: Wow, that was fast: Harvard, Yale moving on ROTC. “Some top universities moved quickly Saturday to respond to the vote repealing the ban on gays in the military, and those who don’t restore their ROTC programs in the wake of the vote are likely to face immediate pressure on the issue.”

Related: Thoughts from Dale Carpenter. I agree that the best thing about this is that it passed legislatively, with bipartisan support.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on December 18, 2010 (boomark / email).