To the Editor:
Their excellencies the Trustees lament that they have been forced to "an unconscionable choice" between justice to gay people and justice to ROTC cadets. And their excellencies just hope and pray that "progress" will someday, somehow be made here: that the courts will finally throw the Pentagon's archaic anti-gay ban out as unconstitutional. The Trustees even talk of just maybe possibly also sending Amicus Curiae letters to support legal challenges to the ban.
This adds up to ... what? To some pretty wimpy hand-wringing on the sidelines. It's embarrassing. The Trustees assure us that they do not like the ban. No. No. They abhor it. Well, why don't they do something about it? Why not go beyond the hand-wringing and the perfunctory Amicus Curiae letters? Why not find a good strong case headed for the Supreme Court and have Dartmouth join some other colleges as co-plaintiffs against the Pentagon? Why not get pro-active around here - for a change?
Campus activists should start steadily pressuring the Trustees to move in this direction. Pressure steadily applied worked with Divestment; it can work here, too.
With Clinton in the White House, there will be one and maybe two more high court seats to fill (Rehnquist is now murmuring about retirement. Good.) It will soon be the hour for liberals to strike at the ban legally. And shut the mouths of Senators Nunn and Helms and their odious band of bigots, that group of ignoramuses who all too successfully cowed Clinton last year.
And if a Supreme Court challenge should - tragically - fail, if that were to happen, then at least the picture would be crystal clear. And the Trustees would then simply have to get rid of ROTC. Flat out. No more finessing. Or face a College in a turmoil reminiscent of the 1960s.
CHARLES STINSON
Professor of Religion
