To the Editor:
The reason why it is important to keep the ROTC issue alive within the Dartmouth journals is very simple. While the Reserve Officers' Training Corps debate may be resolved for many people, the Trustees' decision last Saturday has endorsed one of the most serious struggles daily facing a lesbian or a gay, and that is the 'closet.'
Some people keep skeletons in their closet and,some keep their best suit for corporate recruiting in their closets, but with the evolution of an homosexual identity within a society that assumes both the existence of a sexual identity and that this identity is heterosexual, many people have to keep their lives in this closet. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy that the Trustees accepted in their cruel decision of last Saturday actually lends itself to severe discrimination, rather than merely accepting it, by helping to construct and fortify the sexual and romantic closet for homosexuals.
This closet is not merely about telling parents and friends; this closet leads to serious discrimation and a great deal of personal pain, largely through the paradox of disclosure, so blatant in the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy. I shall end this short letter with a passing moment of faith in the members of the Dartmouth community: if you really want to believe in and comment on the priority of ROTC over a societal structure that is supported by keeping ROTC on this campus, that leads directly to teenage suicide and a great deal of personal distress, try reading 'Epistemology of the Closet,' Eve Sedgwick's classic book on this issue.
An essay version is available in the 'Gay and Lesbian Studies Reader,' and both are to be found in Baker Library. At least then, when talking about how important ROTC is, etc. etc. etc., you might have some idea what you are really endorsing.
SCHUYLER HENDERSON '94
