The College Fix

A federal district judge’s order immediately halting the military’s enforcement of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy raises questions about the future status of the Princeton ROTC program. The order, issued on Tuesday by Judge Virginia Phillips of the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, came after Congressional debate of the 17-year-old policy had stalled in the Senate.

The don’t ask, don’t tell policy prevents military officials from inquiring about soldiers’ sexual orientation and prohibits those who are openly gay or bisexual from serving in the military. The federal law also applies to University-level ROTC programs.

Lt. Col. John Stark, director of army officer training and commissioning for Princeton’s ROTC program, expressed hope that the ROTC program’s status on campus would benefit from the ruling.

“I think it’s the first step in making us part of the mainstream on campus,” he said in an interview hours after the ruling. “Hopefully the administration will see it the same way.”

Under a 1972 agreement between the University and the Army, Princeton ROTC is an “outside organization,” though it maintains a program on campus, University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 explained said. The University provides the program with “the necessary classrooms, administrative offices, office equipment, storage space and other required facilities” under the agreement, he added.

Stark told The Daily Princetonian in September that certain members of the administration had “explicitly expressed” that ROTC’s limited position was due to the military’s perceived discriminatory stance.

Read the full story at the Daily Princetonian.

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