The University does not anticipate making any significant changes to its formal relationship with the ROTC program in light of the end of the U.S. military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy.
On Dec. 22, President Barack Obama signed a bill that ended the military’s ban on openly gay men and women serving in the armed forces. The 17-year-old policy, which applied to ROTC programs, prevented the military from asking about a soldier’s sexual orientation.
“The only change I anticipate is the opportunity for gay students to join ROTC,” President Shirley Tilghman said in an e-mail.
Vice President for Campus Life Cynthia Cherrey echoed Tilghman, saying in an e-mail that “the present relationship that the University has with ROTC will remain the same.”
Under a 1972 agreement, Princeton ROTC operates as an “outside organization” but maintains a program on campus, University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 told The Daily Princetonian in October. The University provides the program with classroom space and administrative offices.
Durkee has said that ROTC’s status was unrelated to the don’t ask, don’t tell policy.
Read the full story at the Daily Princetonian.
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