To the Editor:
I do not agree with the current policy towards gays in the military, in fact I was angry about the rejection of Clinton's plan by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I do not, however, think that ousting the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program from Dartmouth will do very much in changing the current policy. All I see is the denial of students who may not have other means of attending Dartmouth. The program offers 80 percent tuition as well as $100 a month salary and money to cover books. That amounts to about $20,000 a year outright grant (meaning the student doesn't have to take out a loan), as well as offering the student a prime opportunity to serve her or his country. How do I know? I almost enrolled in the program.
I don't understand the reasoning behind the protest. The opposition states that the ROTC is a violation of Dartmouth's anti-discrimination policy, guilt by association. This is not entirely true. Nowhere in the (rather rigorous) application process is there a question about sexual orientation. The evaluation is based on scholarship, athletics and leadership ability (as well as a physical fitness test), and earning an ROTC appointment is not easy. In conjunction with an admission to Dartmouth it yields a student who is worthy of all that Dartmouth offers.
The opposition's argument implies that a member of ROTC supports the current policy. That wasn't true in my case, nor in my dad's, who served 30 years in the submarine force. The Naval ROTC program was removed from Dartmouth in the 1960s, in a similar situation as today's. My dad wanted to attend Dartmouth, and although he recieved admission to Dartmouth, he couldn't attend for financial reasons. He also recieved an ROTC appointment, but the students at Dartmouth had decided to kick out the ROTC unit here, so he attended Annapolis instead. Is he homophobic because he attended the Naval Academy? No, he was limited by financial resources.
I find this argument unfair to those students, like my dad in the 1960s, for which ROTC is the only opportunity to attend an excellent but expensive Ivy League college ($25,000 is a lot, folks). The protests are for the most part sponsored by those who have the means to attend here. I call that blatant elitism. I would like those who are against ROTC to meet each of the 24 women and men in Dartmouth's ROTC to see if they are truly the anti-gay bigots who should be deprived of an education here. I hope those against the ROTC who do not have to worry about paying the tuition realize that attending Dartmouth is based on merit and not wealth. And as someone who has endured the difficult ROTC application process can attest, I think we have the merit.
SANDER SCHLICHTER '97
