In 2005, Columbia students voted overwhelmingly to restore ROTC to campus--and were shot down by the faculty, who overwhelmingly felt that it was more important to register their distaste for DADT than to allow students to choose their own educational and career paths.

Now, in the wake of the Las Vegas Democratic debate--which saw Clinton, Romney, and Obama all declaring that they would enforce the Solomon Amendment if elected--the Columbia Spectator has renewed the call for ROTC's return to campus:

Opponents of ROTC argue that the program's treatment of gays and lesbians violates the University's anti-discrimination protocols. Those protocols should be enforced against businesses and other institutions, but the U.S. military is in a different category altogether. For all its faults, the military has too integral a role in American culture and society to be summarily banned from campus. Concerns about discrimination are surely legitimate, and any future ROTC program should be designed with the rights of LGBT students in mind. Columbia should look to the example set by MIT, which reimburses the Department of Defense on behalf of students removed from ROTC due to their sexual orientation. But to deny the military access to campus outright disengages Columbia from military issues and renders the University largely irrelevant in discussions of how issues like DADT should be addressed.

Columbia's opposition to ROTC has failed to end DADT. In the meantime, without an ROTC program on campus, there has been little discussion of DADT and little effort to effect change. DADT is an unjust and impractical policy, but it must be fought in a way that does not sideline would-be military officers—or would-be Columbia students who may be dissuaded from applying. ROTC's return to campus would be the perfect occasion for a major speech by University President Lee Bollinger articulating Columbia's opposition to DADT. A forceful denunciation of DADT would send a clearer message of where Columbia stands than does the University's current policy.

By welcoming ROTC back to campus, Columbia has the opportunity to gain a more diverse student body and an improved connection to national issues. At the same time, the University can take a stronger stance against DADT by actively engaging with the military. It is not inconsistent to support ROTC while opposing DADT. By repeatedly inviting controversial speakers to campus, Columbia has proven that it understands the benefits of interacting with that which it finds morally wrong. Likewise, bringing ROTC back to campus is by no means a blanket endorsement of its policies. Rather, doing so provides the University with a greater opportunity to challenge them--as it must.

At the very least, Columbia should have allowed the student referendum to carry the day--and should have, on the strength of it, begun exploring whether creating a campus-based battalion would be financially feasible. It's expensive for the government to run ROTC on campus, and student enrollment has to be steady and substantial to make it work. And it may be that the DoD would decide, of its own accord, not to open an ROTC chapter on Columbia's campus. But as things stand, we aren't going to get any answers about that.

Meanwhile, Columbia's faculty continues to regard the campus as an ideological fiefdom, and to treat students not as independent agents, but as pawns in their political games.