With the Board of Trustees' deadline for the federal government to lift the ban on gays in the military on the horizon, the Coalition for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Concerns will sponsor a forum today to spark discussion about the fate of the Reserve Officer Training Corps on campus.
The Trustees promised to terminate the ROTC program if the ban is not removed entirely by next April. ROTC is a military training group that provides scholarships to roughly 25 Dartmouth students in exchange for service in the armed forces after graduation.
The coalition, a powerful lobby group comprised of more than 125 faculty and staff members who support gay and lesbian rights, and the Dartmouth Area Gay and Lesbian Organization, a comparable student group, designed the forum to inform the College community and initiate interest on ROTC's fate.
The discussion will feature two members of the coalition, a co-chair of DaGlo and a professor who is in favor of continuing ROTC. It is scheduled for 4 p.m. in 105 Dartmouth Hall.
"We want to get the discussion going ... by representing all points of view," said John Crane, an administrative services librarian who co-founded the group.
"The forum is to get the information across. It's not intended to be a rally," said Director of Student Programs Linda Kennedy, a member of the coalition.
In September 1991, the Trustees issued a statement giving the military until April 1993 to lift the ban.
But last March, encouraged by the Clinton administration's efforts to rid the armed forces of discrimination based on sexual orientation, the Board extended the deadline one year.
When Clinton instituted the so-called "Don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" policy that would prevent the armed forces from asking recruits their sexual orientation, the Trustees had the option to declare the change sufficient.
But members of the coalition do not think the change is enough to eliminate discrimination in ROTC based on sexual orientation.
"The coalition does not believe the ban has been lifted," Crane said. "The standard set by this new policy does not adhere to the College's Equal Opportunity statement. Heterosexuals and homosexuals should be treated the same."
One of the four main goals the lobby group released upon its conception last year was the elimination of ROTC at Dartmouth unless the military's ban was lifted.
Though members said they feel they have not yet attained this goal, they said they have made strides in each of their initial areas of interest.
"My sense was the formation of the group was not as much intended as an activist group as it was a way of contact with each other," said coalition member Sam Abel, an assistant drama professor. "Last year things just happened more quickly than expected. The ROTC issue snowballed."
In addition to ROTC, the coalition aimed to establish benefits for domestic partners of gay College workers, discontinue College support for the United Way, which donates money to groups like the Boy Scouts of America that exclude homosexuals, and create courses in gay and lesbian studies.
"I've never been on a committee that has accomplished so much in one year," Kennedy said. "It's fun to be part of a success."
Last summer the College decided to grant benefits to domestic partners of gay and lesbian faculty and staff starting this January.
The United Way of the Upper Valley responded to the coalition's lobbying by including a sexual orientation clause in its non-discrimination policy and offered contributors the option to de-select particular groups from receiving part of their donations.
And the College has approved gay and lesbian studies courses, but has not funded them yet.
Kennedy said one of the reasons she thinks the group has been so successful is that its founders came to the group for its first meetings with its main goals outlined, and then stuck to the agenda.
Coalition members will also meet with Trustee Chair John Rosenwald tomorrow to continue lobbying on the ROTC issue, Kennedy said.
Education Professor Andrew Garrod will moderate today's panel, which includes Reverend James Breeden, dean of the Tucker Foundation, History Professor Annelise Orleck, Trevor Burgess '94, chair of DaGlo and Government Professor Lawrence Radway.
