A Bias-Free Campus?

I feel like a traitor these days. Dr. Karla Jay—a lesbian activist who graduated from Barnard in 1968—recently came to speak at Columbia. She mentioned Stephen Donaldson, who graduated Columbia College in 1970 after founding the nation’s first group for gay college students. Discharged from the Navy, Donaldson fought against the presence of Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps on campus. Donaldson represented one of the first voices against the discriminatory practices of the military. “Our work was for nothing,” Jay said sadly, referencing the presidential candidates’ statements in favor of NROTC on Columbia’s campus, and the survey now being prepared to gather student opinion.

I often go to the Stephen Donaldson Lounge to do my homework. It’s a quiet study place—empty on weeknights, without a distracting wireless signal. It has earned its place in history. The Columbia administration fought long and hard against legitimizing a space for gay students. The New York Times covered the conflict—and the final acceptance of the gay lounge—on the front page: “Columbia Agrees to Equip ‘Gay’ Area.” Dragging its heels, Columbia stood at the very center of the gay rights movements. Some of these tensions are part of the past, and some have recently resurfaced. Donaldson’s certificate of honorable discharge from the Navy also hangs on the wall—Jimmy Carter’s historic upgrade from dishonorable discharge. Honorable discharge: it’s a badge of pride, in a conflicted and ironic sort of way.

NROTC inspires intense controversy here at Columbia, a historical microcosm of shifting attitudes towards both homosexuality and the military (I recommend Dr. David Eisenbach’s Gay Power, from which I drew much of the history behind this article). Recent conversations have lit the Stephen Donaldson Lounge up like a firebrand. People speak loudly and rapidly—voices crack and break. Proud Colors, a group for queer students of color, talk about the military’s practice of recruiting from low-income communities, dangling a free education in exchange for service in Iraq. First-years wonder whether they would have come to Columbia if they knew that Columbia might open its doors to an institution that discriminates against them. During these meetings too, I feel like a traitor.

I believe that NROTC should return to Columbia. This conclusion flies in the face of most of my gay friends. Sometimes, as Jay expressed, I’m sure my position feels like a slap in the face. I couldn’t possibly present all the arguments for and against NROTC in one column. All I can do here is begin to explain why I disagree with most of the gay community here at Columbia. My conclusion has to do with the nature of bias and discrimination, and how I believe we must grapple with these forces.

Take the idea of “homophobia,” for instance. George Weinberg, a heterosexual psychologist and ally of the gay movement, first defined the term in 1971. At the time, homosexuality was considered to be a mental disorder by the American Psychological Association. Weinberg used the term in this medical context, suggesting that those who believed that homosexual behavior was unnatural were themselves disordered, even mentally unstable. Today we use the term to refer to any anti-gay belief or action, but the stigmatization remains. When we talk about a homophobe, we are talking about an enemy.

I dislike the term not because I think anti-gay attitudes are acceptable, but because I hate the sense of otherness the word evokes. In the gay community, we create a distance between ourselves and homophobia. We rally together against an enemy, be it Anita Bryant or Sarah Palin.

But I cannot reconcile myself to these ideas. Gay people often find themselves torn between communities, one set of values seeking to overturn the other. I come from a conservative church and family, where I often hear anti-gay attitudes expressed. But I know my church and I love my family, and I know their actions ultimately stem from love and concern, not hate. I could never look at “homophobes” as the enemy, not when anti-gay attitudes extend far beyond the barbed-wire fences of Wisconsin, into every facet of American life.

In a recent e-mail, President Lee Bollinger referenced a “core principle of the University: that we will not have programs on the campus that discriminate.” This attitude towards homophobia explains much of the gay community’s attitude toward the military. The military discriminates against us. Until this discrimination ends, we are against the military.

However, I cannot withdraw from my responsibility as an American any more than I can withdraw from my family. The military, controlled by an elected civilian, represents a permanent part of American life. The military’s problems are our problems—the military’s mistakes are our mistakes. Take one pressing mistake: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In his e-mail, Bollinger referred to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell as a Department of Defense policy. This statement reveals a crucial error in thinking, for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is not a DOD policy, but rather a federal law, brought through Congress and signed by Bill Clinton. All of these representatives acted through the power invested in them by the people. We elect our leaders, and these leaders help to shape our government. We cannot look at the military as something exterior to ourselves any more than we can look at the plight of the public schools or the prison system as exterior to ourselves.

We cannot address discrimination by distancing ourselves from the military. We cannot ignore Columbia’s potential to create a liberalizing influence from the bottom up (the five students Bollinger lists as currently participating in Fordham’s ROTC program can do precious little on their own). As an elite institution funded largely by taxpayer dollars, we cannot legally excuse ourselves from actively engaging with the military (read the Solomon Amendment). Most importantly, we cannot address discrimination by imagining that we can keep it off of campus. Bias exists in our homes, in our classrooms, in the law of the land, and in ourselves. When we see discrimination on campus, this means that our campus accurately reflects America. We need to see the truth. We do not need shelter. We should embrace the discriminatory—whether embodied in a person, a community, or an American institution—and thereby seek to change it.

The author is a sophomore in Columbia College. He is the President of the Columbia College Class of 2011, film editor for Spectator, and the Treasurer of the Columbia Queer Alliance. The views represented in this article are his own and do not represent the views of any organization.