www.palmcenter.org/node/1228 -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 2/16/2009
Last Visited: 4/13/2009
Kenneth Harbaugh, a former Navy pilot, occasional professor at Yale and director of the Center for Citizen Leadership, has written an op-ed in the New York Times calling it a "disgrace" that Yale students don't notice the absence of military uniforms on campus.
But rather than address one of the root causes of the problem-that the government's ban on openly gay troops conflicts with both the policies and principles of most of our nation's best universities, who are committed to equality and non-discrimination- Harbaugh dismisses the military's gay ban as an insignificant reason for opposition to R.O.T.C.'s presence on campuses.
"Whenever I encounter animus toward the military at Yale, it is almost always born of ignorance," writes Harbaugh.
...
Harbaugh would benefit from reviewing the history of the battle over gay service.
...
Harbaugh has it backwards: he attributes anti-military sentiment to civilian elites who are "dangerously out of touch" with America's rank and file; in fact it is military elites who, by insisting on a gay ban, have driven our best and brightest away from military service, even as polls show the rank and file increasingly don't care if their comrades are gay.
Even more amazing, Harbaugh clearly hasn't done his homework if he blames the universities for banning R.O.T.C.