According to a leaked advance copy of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, the president will, with Don’t Ask Don’t Tell on the way out, ask America’s colleges and universities to let ROTC back in:
Our troops come from every corner of this country – they are black, white, Latino, Asian and Native American. They are Christian and Hindu, Jewish and Muslim. And, yes, we know that some of them are gay. Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love. And with that change, I call on all of our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and the ROTC. It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.
There’s one problem with that call, though — the doors aren’t closed now.
As Professor Diane Mazur noted in the New York Times three months ago, no college or university currently bars ROTC from campus. Not one. Some faculty and students are opposed to such programs, and some universities choose not to grant course credit for ROTC, but the ban is entirely a myth.
Update | It should be noted that the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the federal government can withhold funds from any campus that bars military recruiters, and that many campuses have allowed recruiters to return since that ruling was issued. I don’t know whether any are currently still keeping them off.
It should also be noted that the DADT policy still remains in effect, and that the military is thus still discriminating against lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers. Congressional repeal of DADT was a step toward ending that discrimination, but it wasn’t the final step.
studentactivism.net 
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January 25, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Melissa B
Are you taking “college” literally? Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Stamford do not currently allow ROTC on their university campuses. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/12/ap-military-colleges-reconsider-rotc-on-campus-122310/
January 25, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Angus Johnston
Melissa, if you read your own link, two things jump out: First, ROTC isn’t banned from the campuses you talk about. Second, the resistance to ROTC programs on them is mostly coming from the military, not the universities themselves.
January 25, 2011 at 10:29 pm
Robert Haskins
Melissa, the article you linked says explicitly they were not banned, instead the ROTC pulled themselves out rather than accept these institutions requiring them to restructure their programs to meet stricter education goals in the face of growing Vietnam War resistance. The repeal of DADT and any formal re-acceptance of ROTC by those colleges amounts to more of a mea culpa than removal of any ban.
January 25, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Reginald James
“I call on all of our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and the ROTC.”
All college campuses that receive federal money (see, FAFSA applicants) are required to allow the military on campus, right?
Military recruiters routinely come on campus and basically lie to young people about military service and its benefits because they will receive a commission for each head recruited. Although there are benefits to military service, both for the individual and the nation, should recruiters be pulling students off campus to join the ranks.
Interestingly enough, as the economy has gotten worse, more recruitment efforts take place. At Laney College in Oakland, military recruiters were on campus last week before school had even started. When laid off workers, or students taking classes for the first time since high school go to campus for the first time, they are bombarded with second rate facilities, and first rate promises.
Obama, end the wars. Bring the troops home. Fund their education.
January 25, 2011 at 11:08 pm
ROTC advocate
“Effectively barred” would be a more accurate description than “banned”.
Diane Mazur’s article is not wholly incorrect, but she is misleading in what she omits in her NY Times article. During the Vietnam War, some universities knowingly took measures against ROTC that under the ROTC Revitalization Act of 1964 made it legally impossible for ROTC to stay at those universities. While Mazur is correct that ROTC chose to leave the universities, she omits that they left only because those universities knowlingly made it legally impossible for ROTC to stay. For a more balanced historical account of the university-ROTC separation than Diane Mazur’s, I recommend “Re-Legitimizing ROTC” by Michael Segal: http://www.securenation.org/re-legitimizing-rotc/
January 26, 2011 at 10:30 am
Justin
If you check out the following article on Washington Post-
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2011/01/obama_dont_ask_dont_tell_will.html
You’ll see that the President of Columbia says that they’ve blocked military recruiters:
“Several of the nation’s top colleges and universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Stanford, have blocked military recruiters from using campus buildings and offices, but have said they would eventually provide full access once the military ends its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“This has been a difference of principle that I think no one has wanted, but it has been a longstanding and very difficult matter,” Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said in an interview last year. “If it were resolved with the elimination of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ there would be an enormous feeling of gratitude and openness, more openness to the relations with the military.”
Bollinger, who also sits on the board of The Washington Post Co., did warn, however, that allowing ROTC recruiters back on campus might take some time. “It would have to go through a process and people would have to discuss it. It’s not just a matter where the president can order this to happen,” he said.”
In the end, it comes down to the spirit of the matter. There may be reasons in addition to DADT, but either way the elite universities that have been anti-ROTC ought to be earnestly change their policy if this major objection of theirs is met. I’d hope that there are a lot of brilliant students that do want to serve their country, but feel a sense of hypocrisy in trying to live up to this past hetero ideal of an American soldier, when sexual preference should have nothing to do with your ability to serve. We need more broad-based support for military as they fight to protect all of us, not just some of us.