When Exclusion Breeds Exclusion

Having worked at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest this past summer, I had the opportunity to follow Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as he attended several events on a late July visit. There were many big diplomatic events, yet the most telling admission made by Powell came instead during a small discussion he had with Hungarian students shortly before leaving the country. While most of the students were interested in policy, one was more interested in Powell himself, asking why such an intelligent man would ever join the military. Powell?s answer came down to something that may surprise Columbia students: the military?s policies of inclusion.

As Powell explained, there were not many places in 1950s America where minorities had equal career opportunities. However, with Truman?s decision to integrate the military in 1948 and the implementation of that policy in 1952, the military became one of them. While racism still existed among soldiers as it did in society at large, Powell continued, military policy forbade racial discrimination in any form and it was known that the policy was supported by most officers and that they would enforce it. In that sense, Powell confided, the military was the only place where he felt he would have an equal opportunity to succeed. So he joined ROTC in 1954, and succeed he did.

This history leaves one question: what happened? How did an institution ahead of society in practicing racial inclusion fall behind when it came to sexual orientation?

With its racial integration, the military led society in carrying out necessary social change. By the time of the Supreme Court?s decision that separate but equal is not equal in Brown v. Board of Education, the military had already been fully integrated for two years. And in comparison with the desegregation of schools that followed, the integration of the military occurred with little resistance. Compared with the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957?enforced by the already integrated U.S. Army against popular unrest?the difference is as clear as night and day.

Just as the military led the nation in racial integration, it also led the way on gender integration, losing its identity as an ?all boys club? long before, for instance, Columbia College. With the Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, women were allowed to join every military branch. While they did not always received equal treatment afterwards, the first female cadets at West Point graduated in 1980, four years before Columbia College opened its own doors to women.

In 1952, thanks in large part to active ROTC programs, the military?s officer corps were full of talented university graduates seeking to serve their country. These were the officers that carried out racial integration with little interference. When ROTC was banned in 1969, then, it was not for lack of inclusion. Instead, it was banned from elite campus after campus, including most of the Ivy League, during the upheaval surrounding the Vietnam War and the draft. At the time, the military was arguably more inclusive than Columbia itself.

24 years later, the officer corps had changed. The retirement of older officers with Ivy League educations combined with 24 years of banning ROTC programs that would have allowed younger graduates to rise up and fill their shoes had taken its toll. When President Clinton proposed in 1993 that homosexuals be allowed to openly serve, then, an officer corps practically devoid of officers from elite universities balked at the idea. The result was ?Don?t ask, don?t tell.? The institution that had been a force for social integration had become one resisting that change.

The lesson could not be clearer: exclusion breeds exclusion. At Columbia, I have heard much said about the increasing military-civilian gap and problems that it poses. Yet excluding ROTC cadets reinforces this separation. If the Columbia community sees the increasing military-civilian gap as a problem, then it should stop merely complaining and find ways to reduce it. Bringing back ROTC would be a good start.

Some may call the notion that the nation?s most liberal universities will produce more liberal officers elitist. I call it common sense. Furthermore, from the military?s example of racial integration, we can learn how to show a better example to the military and society as a whole. Exclusion breeds exclusion, but the opposite is also true. Tolerance breeds tolerance. When preaching tolerance and inclusion to the military, then, Columbia should also practice it, both toward minority groups and prospective military officers.