In recent years, the university has had an increasingly close relationship with the military. In addition to Army and Air Force ROTC programs, the university is now home to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence that received nearly $12 million in funding from the DHS in 2008. About 100 of the university’s faculty members are listed as experts in Homeland Security, and this past year, the university implemented both a DHS-funded minor in terrorism studies and an Air Force ROTC-funded minor in military studies. Two months ago, the university was officially announced as the home to the new U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. So the university is obligated more than ever to critically engage with the nation’s armed forces. One of the armed forces’ current practices in particular stands in flagrant opposition of this university’s values – the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that mandates the dismissal of any openly gay service members.
In 2003, Stephen Benjamin graduated in the top 10 percent of his class at the Defense Language Institute and was prepared to deploy to Iraq, only to be drummed out of the Navy because he was gay. In 2006, the same fate befell former Sgt. Bleu Copas, also an Arabic linguist. This past April, yet another Arabic linguist, Lt. Dan Choi, was also discharged for being openly gay. This May, Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach was also discharged for being gay, despite the 18 years of service he spent in the Air Force, during which he earned a total of nine air medals. But it’s almost beside the point that the policy is enormously harmful to the armed services themselves.
For a little more than a decade, this university has shown a greater awareness of LGBT issues, and has taken significant steps to help ensure equality on the campus. A 2005 report from the President’s Commission for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, for example, reported that, “Overall, a substantial majority indicated that they believed the environment to be generally positive – maybe not everywhere, and maybe not all the time, and maybe not in all aspects – but at least positive to some degree.” As one example, the university has advocated expanding health benefits to domestic partners since 1994, despite persistent and aggressive opposition by the Board of Regents. In this April’s legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly voted to extend domestic partner benefits to all state employees.
It would be the height of hypocrisy and civic negligence to accept tens of millions of dollars from the military while quietly ignoring a policy that forces members of the LGBT community to choose between being barred from military service and repressing their sexual identity. As a public institution, we bear a responsibility to support the public interest, which is enormously dependent on the security provided by our military. But it is also our responsibility to fight for a government that operates justly, particularly as the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and as President Barack Obama continues to waffle on the issue.
In truth, the university should support a national campaign to have the policy changed. Their lobbying could have a significant impact – after all, as President Dan Mote is fond of bragging, Steny Hoyer, the current majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives is a graduate of this university and continues to be involved in university affairs. As a meager first step, however, the university should utilize its research capabilities to debunk the asinine justifications offered in defense of the policy.
The armed forces section of the U.S. Code claims “the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.” The university should assemble a multidisciplinary team to evaluate this logic. Recruit social psychologists to interview students in the ROTC, current service members and veterans to evaluate whether they actually believe openly gay service members would disrupt unit cohesion. Involve sociology professor David Segal, who has already argued that permitting openly gay individuals to serve in the military would without question cause less disruption than when minorities were incorporated in the 1940s or when women were incorporated in the 1970s. Compile the findings into a pamphlet as glossy as our admissions materials, and send copies to the members of the military and intelligence community working on our campus, to every member of Congress and to the White House.
University President and current University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan once said, “I want College Park to be a place where excellence is achieved through diversity. A place that reflects the diversity of our state and the cultural richness of our world; a place where study and learning count, and color or accent or gender do not; a place where one can attack the ideas of another while affirming the human dignity of all; a place that enables individuals to be larger than they once were and more open of mind than they thought they could be.”
Let’s live up to his vision.
