While the former foreign secretary for the Taliban attends lectures openly at Yale, ROTC cadets routinely feel compelled to change out of their U. S. military uniforms before returning to class.
“There is the good, the bad, and the ugly,” explained Flagg Youngblood at Accuracy in Academia’s Conservative University this week. “Georgetown, Norwich, and Berkeley are the good, Harvard and Emory are the bad, and Yale, my alma mater, is the ugly.” Currently, Youngblood works at the Young America’s Foundation.
As an ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) cadet, Youngblood was forced to drive 70 miles each way to receive his military training. Students and faculty were argumentative and rude when they returned to campus, “one of my friends was walking through campus in his uniform and another student spit on him and called him a ‘baby killer.’”
Since then, Youngblood has worked to help protect the rights of students to join the military, culminating in the passage of the Solomon Amendment.
The Amendment denies federal funds to any school that does not allow access of the ROTC and military recruitment on campus. A recent Supreme Court decision upheld the law.
Youngblood explained to the audience that 100 years ago, elite schools wanted students to participate in the military and ROTC, many making it compulsory, “They wanted to demonstrate what kind of leadership it takes to run the country.”
The speaker said that since Vietnam there has been strong opposition to the military on campus. He claims this is because the same people who ran anti-war demonstrations in the 60’s are now professors, “many deferred going to the war and stayed in academia.”
Today, he contended, “faculty and administrators are comfortable in a bubble.”
Since the controversial Supreme Court decision on the Solomon Amendment was handed down in support of the military, Youngblood explained that it is time to work together, “schools and supporters of the military can build a bridge.”
Criticizing the schools, the speaker noted that it is sad that it had to come down to money, especially when schools might still receive full federal funding without making it clear that they support the military. Youngblood challenged these institutions to make positive statements in order to change the perceived attitude they have toward the military. He suggested statements like, “we are proud of our ROTC cadets” instead of staying silent or being openly opposed to the military.
Part of the blame for the lack of support for the military on campus, Youngblood suggested, is the weaning will of college presidents. When anti-war professors are voting to remove the military from campus it is “like inmates running the asylum,” Youngblood said. He recommended that college presidents take a lesson from Larry Summers, the former President of Harvard who favored the ROTC (and later resigned from his position). At Harvard, when the faculty became hostile toward Summers because of his opinions he told one faculty member, Cornell West, to concentrate on his job, noting that creating a rap album was not an appropriate academic endeavor.
“College presidents need to put their neck out and face the slings and arrows,” Youngblood stated, “and if they [the professors] don’t like it, they can quit.”
Another suggestion made by the lecturer called for public activism, “If the citizenry speak up, the government will act.”
Rosemarie Capozzi is an intern with Accuracy in Academia.
