The Return of ROTC to New York City by Cheryl Miller
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POLICY BRIEF 14 • OCTOBER 2013 The Return of ROTC to New York City By Cheryl Miller Last month, the US Army Reserve Officers’ Training official ties with ROTC have been renewed at Harvard, Corps (ROTC) returned to the City College of New York Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and City College. after a 41-year absence. At the official signing ceremony ROTC’s return also heralds an important change for last May, former secretary of state and retired general the military. The anti-ROTC campaigns of the Vietnam Colin Powell—arguably the college’s most famous alum era coincided with a shift by the military away from the and a graduate of Army ROTC—noted the significance Northeast and urban areas toward easier recruiting grounds of the reconciliation. In bringing ROTC back to campus, in the South and the Midwest. Over the years, this policy General Powell said, the college was recognizing that “we has become more pronounced, widening the gap between may disagree with the politics or the policies of it all but Americans and their military. Nowhere has this disconnect military service is honorable.”1 been more evident than in America’s largest city, which, General Powell’s words were a reminder of ROTC’s until recently, was served by just four ROTC programs. tumultuous history at City College and its forced ouster In short, the renewal of City College ROTC marks a during the firestorm of student protests over the Viet- move by the Army toward reengagement with New York nam War. Like several other prominent schools—among City and with other areas currently underserved by mil- them, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia University—City itary recruiting policy. The City College program is part College had hosted one of the earliest ROTC programs of a larger effort to make ROTC more accessible to New in the nation, graduating its first class in 1917. But this York City students. Not only does the college provide collaboration ended during the Vietnam era after some ROTC with a foothold in Manhattan—New York’s most schools voted to bar the college-based training program populous borough—but it will also serve as headquarters for military officers from campus.2 Later opposition to for a new partnership with the City University of New US policy on gays in the military, particularly “Don’t Ask, York (CUNY), the public university system to which Don’t Tell” (DADT), reinforced the schools’ bans and led City College belongs. to the removal of more ROTC programs, including at one Along with its longtime programs at Fordham Uni- of City College’s sister schools, the John Jay College of versity in the Bronx and St. John’s University in Queens, Criminal Justice, in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Army ROTC is now teaching classes at York College in Recent years have seen a softening in attitudes about Queens (established last fall) and began training at Med- the military among students and faculty. The attacks on gar Evers College in Brooklyn last month.4 The CUNY- September 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in Afghan- ROTC partnership will redress the current scarcity of istan and Iraq—as well as the upswell of new student commissioning opportunities in New York, making the veterans—led many at America’s colleges and universities program more available to hundreds of thousands of to reassess their views of ROTC.3 The 2010 repeal of students in all five boroughs of the city. If successful, it DADT removed another obstacle to ROTC’s return. can serve as an example for big-city campuses in other Thus, since 2011, with remarkably little opposition, underserved areas like Chicago and Los Angeles.5 POLICY BRIEF 14 Reengaging New York and Other ages 50 and older. Family connections with the mili- Urban Areas tary are most common in the South, where 64 percent reported having a family tie. That compares with 56 From its formal adoption in 1916, ROTC was intended percent of those in the Northeast.7 to be a national program. Uneasy with the prospect of Patterns in who joins the armed forces may help a professional military elite trained at the service acade- widen the gap. Those with veterans in their family are mies, the United States turned to college-based training more likely to join the military.8 But young Americans programs that would produce citizen-soldier officers. By have far fewer family connections to the military than virtue of their different education, these officers would previous generations, making them less likely to join. As infuse the military with a broader set of civilian values a result, more Americans are increasingly insulated from and help ensure that the military’s leadership would military service. more reflect the country as a whole. In short, an ROTC program that encompassed all 50 states, all strata of society, and all types of institutions could help maintain Since 2011, with remarkably little the social, geographic, economic, and intellectual balance of the officer corps in a way that other commissioning opposition, official ties with ROTC sources could not. But in recent decades, the ROTC has become con- have been renewed at Harvard, centrated in the South and the Midwest at the expense of the Northeast and urban centers. Prior to ROTC’s return Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and to City College, New York City—home to the nation’s largest student population—had just four host programs: City College. two Army, one Navy, and one Air Force. In comparison, Virginia, with a population roughly equivalent to the During peacetime, this gap may have been manage- city’s, has 20. Alabama, with a little over half the popula- able, but in the wake of two protracted wars—Afghanistan tion, has 10 Army programs. and Iraq—top military leaders began to express concerns The reasons for ROTC’s retreat are complex. Anti- about the social costs associated with current policy. In military sentiment at some schools has certainly played a much-discussed speech at Duke University in 2010, a role, but economic pressures have hit even harder. former secretary of defense Robert Gates challenged the During the first wave of closures, from 1968 to 1974, the military to broaden its recruiting base or risk developing Army closed 43 ROTC programs in the Northeast and a cadre of military leaders who politically, socially, and opened 45 new programs in the South. But the second geographically have less and less in common with the wave, during the post-Cold War drawdown, saw cuts to people they have sworn to defend.9 still more programs in the Northeast—70 in all, includ- In renewing relationships with Ivy League schools, ing the Army’s remaining programs in Manhattan and military officials often noted the need to ensure ROTC’s Brooklyn. Urban areas were deeply affected: New Jersey national representation. “To best serve our nation, the lost four of its seven Army ROTC units; Pittsburgh and military has to be reflective of the nation it serves, and it Chicago each lost two of three units; and Philadelphia’s does not serve our country well if any part of the society Army ROTC units were cut from four to two.6 does not share in the honor of its defense,” Secretary of Whatever motivated the retreat, the outcome has the Navy Ray Mabus remarked at Yale’s 2011 signing been clear. A shrinking ROTC footprint, combined with ceremony.10 Admiral Mike Mullen, then-chairman of the a smaller military and the consolidation of bases around Joint Chiefs of Staff, commented on the rapprochement the country, means fewer Americans know someone who with the Ivies to the Boston Globe: “I think representation serves. Young adults (ages 18–29) are the most discon- . in particular [at] universities in the Northeast would nected; just one-third have a close family member with be of great benefit to both the universities as well as the military experience, compared to 77 percent of adults military, as well as the country.”11 2 POLICY BRIEF 14 Beyond warning about a growing civil-military gap, Colonel Mathis and her team were quick to recognize the military is taking concrete steps to reengage urban the unique opportunities that CUNY, as the nation’s areas and the Northeast. Major General Jefforey A. Smith, third-largest public university system, afforded. commander of the US Army Cadet Command, which With 24 campuses in all five boroughs, CUNY could oversees the branch’s ROTC program, commissioned a help the Army expand from its distant, outer-borough new “Strategic Plan” for ROTC that affirms the impor- posts to more accessible locations, including the city’s tance of geographic diversity and establishes more geo- most populous boroughs, Manhattan and Brooklyn. graphically balanced recruiting targets.12 “The goal for An expanded ROTC footprint would cut down on Army ROTC is to produce an officer corps that reflects commutes for cadets at nonhost schools—a significant the racial, ethnic and geographic diversity of America, obstacle to participation in the program. But even better not of colleges,” General Smith noted in a recent Army from the Army’s point of view was that CUNY’s central press release. “Obtaining the right balance of second registration system would allow any of the university’s lieutenants will provide the Army the right balance of 480,000 students to enroll in the ROTC program most lieutenant colonels and colonels in 2030 and beyond.”13 convenient to them and receive credit on their official General Smith’s strategic plan envisions broad CUNY transcript.16 changes to ROTC’s military science curriculum and summer training course, as well as its recruiting strategy.