Harvard Military Recruiting Stance Hypocritical

To the editors:



When I read your editorial about the Supreme Court decision upholding the Solomon Amendment requirement tying federal funding to military recruitment (“Not So Patriotic,” Mar. 13), I thought it must be an ironic humor piece. Poor Harvard must accept $400 million from the federal government, because it is in the best interest of medical and scientific research and of America as a whole. What a sacrifice! There are principles, but then there is money.

Perhaps Harvard could salve its conscience by simply refusing the money that comes from the Defense Department. After all, if it is repugnant to associate with military lawyers recruiting on campus, it must be equally repugnant to take millions of dollars from other military officers.

From my own standpoint as a former Judge Advocate General officer, it is mystifying to me how making it harder to recruit graduates of Harvard Law is supposed to change the policy on homosexuals in the military, a policy which was imposed by Congress and former President Clinton—it cannot be changed by any person in uniform. If professors were sincere about criticizing that policy, they would equally reject any official visit to the campus by President Clinton, who bears direct responsibility for that policy. But I sincerely doubt that that will ever happen. Their attitude is on a par with the feminists who roundly called for the immolation of all naval officers who were even in Las Vegas during the “tailhook episode,” while turning about and defending President Clinton’s actions during the Lewinsky scandal.

As a former law student (though not at Harvard), it strikes me as ludicrous that law professors feel a need to censor the recruitment process for graduating 3Ls, who are at least 24 years old. In a time when universities refuse to be paternalistic about students’ sexual behavior or alcohol abuse, the idea that, after three years of learning at the feet of these professors, Harvard’s law graduates aren’t smart enough to make up their own minds on whether to join the military or not, is hypocritical in the extreme. Law firms participating in the same recruitment interviews are offering upwards of $125,000 a year to new graduates. Presumably that is the market value of intelligence and judgment honed by three years at Harvard Law. But the professors’ true estimate of their students’ wisdom is revealed by their belief that the same students will be swayed unduly by the romance of working in remote locations and war zones and being paid a third of what their classmates make.

Not to mention being looked down on by their professors and many of their classmates for not being as mercenary as Harvard University.



RAYMOND T. SWENSON

Idaho Falls, Idaho

March 13, 2006



The writer is a retired lieutenant colonel of the United States Air Force.