ROTC Back at Yale After 40 Years

ROTC stayed out of colleges to protest 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 26, 2011 11:10 AM CDT
Updated May 26, 2011 11:13 AM CDT
Navy ROTC Back at Yale After 40 Years
In this April 9, 1969 file picture, a student leader speaks from steps of the Harvard administration building at Cambridge, Mass. as part of a protest against the ROTC program at the university.   (AP Photo/Bill Chaplis)

Yale University has agreed to bring back ROTC for the first time in decades after Congress voted to allow gays to serve openly in the military. The university's president Richard Levin and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus planned to sign an agreement today that establishes the Naval ROTC's formal presence at Yale for the first time since the early 1970s. A handful of Yale students have already been involved with ROTC, but they must attend training at other colleges. Harvard University welcomed the Reserve Officer's Training Corps back in March.

The ROTC left prominent universities amid anti-Vietnam War sentiment. Colleges more recently kept it off campus because of the military's policy on gays, which they considered discriminatory. Congress repealed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in December. (More Yale University stories.)

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