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Kind of a Big Deal

The administration here works very hard to portray Cornell as a diverse place. From programming houses that celebrate different cultures, to groups that support minority populations to the ubiquitous — and notorious — diversity arches, we are constantly informed of Cornell’s “Open Doors, Open Hearts and Open Minds.”

Even on Cornell’s homepage, there is a prominent link entitled “Diversity & Inclusiveness,” connecting to Cornell’s Commitment to Diversity. Listed here are Cornell’s diversity goals, including a goal “to ensure that our community embraces and supports individuals from all racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual orientation, class and nationality groups in their chosen pursuits.” Sun Podcast: A podcast is available for this column. Click here to listen to or to download it.

Although the degree to which Cornell is reaching this goal is debatable, there is one area of our university where this mission is being blatantly defied: our ROTC program.

Cornell’s status as a land-grant institution has meant it has had a long history with ROTC — with Barton Hall standing as an imposing visual reminder. Some of our fellow students are involved in each of the three branches of the military through their participation in ROTC programs, with many of them earning full-tuition scholarships that allow them to afford our expensive university.

However, the military, and thus ROTC here at Cornell, has a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” regarding its gay and lesbian soldiers. In other words, the U.S. military welcomes gays into the military, so long as they disguise their sexual orientation.

In 2004, this policy became an important issue on campuses around the country when a group of law schools founded the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) to oppose military recruiters on campus — in part due to conflict between “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the broad-based non-discrimination policies on many campuses. However, it wasn’t as simple as convincing the University to stop military recruitment and ROTC programs. FAIR was constrained by the Solomon Amendment, which allows the federal government to deny funding to any university that prohibits these programs. For schools like Cornell that depend on federal funding, this amendment amounts to compulsory violation of their non-discrimination policies. FAIR challenged the amendment in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. In the end, the Court upheld the law, apparently choosing discrimination over tolerance.

This month, “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been thrust back into the spotlight after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Peter Pace spoke about the policy in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. “I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Pace said. “Saying that gays should serve openly in the military, to me, says that we, by policy, would be condoning what I believe is immoral activity.”

His narrow-minded comments, and the political response that followed, has reminded many Cornellians of our own exception to inclusiveness.

Some say that “don’t ask, don’t tell” does not qualify as discrimination because it does not actively discriminate against gays and lesbians, but rather simply asks them not to disclose their sexual orientation. This argument obviously comes from those who have little to no understanding of what life is like for gays and lesbians in our society. Asking soldiers to hide their sexual orientation is not only discriminatory, but also takes a psychological toll.

“Telling gay men and women that they had to hide who they were in order to earn the privilege of getting shot at for our idiot military adventures was almost worse than open bigotry,” wrote Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone in March. “It essentially institutionalized the Closet.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” demands that gay service people deny a part of themselves. And if they do not abide by the discriminatory policy, they are dismissed from the service. For Cornell ROTC students, this would mean they are suddenly without their scholarships — not something to be taken lightly considering current tuition prices.

The number of soldiers dismissed because of this policy is substantial — with the Government Accountability Office finding in a 2005 study that 10,000 service personnel have been discharged since the policy took effect in 1993. And this statistic does not include those soldiers who left the service “voluntarily” because they could no longer deal with the policy.

But beyond that, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a signal to some in the military that discrimination towards gays and lesbians is condoned by their superiors. Too often, this leads to a culture of homophobia and intolerance within the ranks. A 2000 Defense Department survey found that 80 percent of those in the military had heard “offensive speech, derogatory names, jokes or remarks about gays.” 37 percent also reported that “they had witnessed or experienced direct, targeting forms of harassment, including verbal and physical assaults and property damage.”

A recent Sun editorial concluded that, despite the discrimination inherent within “don’t ask, don’t tell,” ROTC at Cornell was “a tradition worth keeping.” This conclusion simply cannot be substantiated. There is no justification for discrimination against our students — be it on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation or any other division. At a university like ours, with the administration apparently working so hard to achieve diversity, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a black spot on our record — and one that can no longer be brushed aside. If we are to proclaim ourselves a university committed to inclusiveness, we must extend this to all men and women on this campus. True inclusiveness means no exceptions.

Laura Taylor is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be contacted at lat34@cornell.edu. Kind of a Big Deal appears Tuesdays.

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