After 42 Years, Columbia U. Will Reinstate Naval ROTC

The Naval ROTC program will return to Columbia University this year, after a 42-year absence, university officials said this afternoon. The announcement, seven weeks after a similar move at Harvard, followed the Columbia University Senate’s approval of a measure to enter talks with the Defense Department about reinstating the program, which the university had prevented from returning because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which many in academe considered discriminatory toward gay service members. The program will officially return to Columbia when the repeal of the policy, signed into law in December, is officially carried out this year, officials said. The university originally banned ROTC in 1969, at the height of the antiwar movement, over concerns about new program rules that faculty members said hindered academic freedom.