I'm a Senator of the
Associated Students of Portland State University, which is
Portland State University's governing student body. In March of this year, the progressive slate that I was running on made a
sweeping victory in the elections. Our slate members took office at the beginning of summer and since, we've met more during the summer than any past senate in recent memory.
Recently a colleague of mine has presented a resolution that would ask the Administration of the school to
remove all military presence, namely the ROTC and Viking Guard programs from the campus in protest of the Iraq War as well as the U.S. Military's Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy.
Text of the resolution below the fold.
Resolution 2005-005-SF
A resolution to oppose the Iraq War and remove ROTC/ Viking Guard from PSU.
WHEREAS, the United States Military, including the Reserve Officers Training
Corps (ROTC) currently practices discriminatory hiring practices in violation
of Portland State University, City of Portland, and Multnomah County code; and
WHEREAS, the Iraq war is an imperial occupation of another country; and
WHEREAS, in good conscience, the ASPSU Student Senate cannot stand by while
these two facts remain true; and
Therefore, the ASPSU Student Senate HEREBY OPPOSES the ongoing Iraq war; and
further HEREBY REQUESTS the administration of Portland State University to
remove ROTC units and United States military recruiters from Portland State
University campus immediately.
So there are a few things. Firstly, this is a tried practice. I believe this was used during the Vietnam War as a way to protest U.S. presence. Secondly, the fact of the matter is that the military does practice discriminatory hiring practices. These hiring practices are in violation of many laws in the Portland area as well as in conflict with hiring practices dictated by the University itself. Attempts by the conservatives on campus (yes, Portland does have a few conservatives lurking in dark alleys) to defend Don't Ask/Don't Tell have been futile.
From an email sent to the ASPSU listserv, edited to protect the privacy of a colleague:
I am grateful to **** for posting the proposed resolutions. It helps me to
understand where they are coming from. While I believe he is doing his duty
in trying to represent his constituents, I urge you to defeat his Resolution
2005-005-SF. I've chatted with him directly via e-mail today and rather
than restate the points I made to him, I'll simply "cut and paste" them in
here:
[regarding the discriminatory hiring practices "Whereas"]
The whole gay/lesbian discrimination bit regarding military service is a bit
of
a straw man. The military doesn't function under the same regulations as
business. It can't. For instance, a business is required to hire people
with disabilities--people in wheelchairs, blind, deaf, or with others with
serious physical handicaps must be hired, so long as they can do the work. Can you
imagine if we were forced to enlist people with physical disabilities in the
military? Heck, even if you're overweight, not sufficiently coordinated, or
in
extremely poor physical shape (or just older than 35) you can't join the
military--they rightly believe you won't be able to do the sorts of tasks
you
will need to do.
Right now you might be asking yourself where he's going with this. Either that, or you just skipped over the whole quote because you've realized how crazy it seems. Keep reading.
Now, while the homosexuality issue is a bit different than that, one could certainly argue that, like physical handicaps, having an openly homosexual
individual serving would adversely effect his or her ability to function in the military. And we need to remember that the military DOESN'T bar
homosexuals. It just bars people from openly declaring they are gay. As a matter of
fact, I've had a couple Marines working for me that may or may not have been gay/bisexual. On occasion the other officers and I would discuss the daily soap opera that is life in a Comm Company and some of the more challenging
antics the Marines working for you can raise, but we never pursued finding out the sexual orientations of any of our Marines. Didn't matter. As long as they were discreet, didn't raise any headaches for us, and were shit-hot at their jobs we didn't care. We were more concerned about the Marine that had been evicted from her apartment for filthy living conditions and complaints from neighbors, among many, many other things than worrying about someone's sexual orientation.
In conclusion, claiming to oppose the military on the basis of discrimination is
a bit disingenuous. Can you imagine what would happen if a person complained
that the military doesn't accept parapalegics? No one would take you seriously. Besides, with "Don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue," military
policy permits gays/bisexuals. And I hope you don't take my views personally,
as I try not to take yours, rhetoric aside. You're doing your best to support
a section of the PSU population, I'm doing the same. This is just the happy,
happy game of politics.
Yes, he did in fact just compare paraplegics to homosexuals.
Clearly, that line of thought is not helping the conservative efforts on the campus.
However, this does:Those opposing the resolution said it was discriminatory towards military personnel who attend PSU. Junior Richard Helzer, a member of the PSU Guard Officer Leadership Development program, said that he and nine other students would lose their full state tuition assistance if the program were made to cease.
Is this discriminating against discriminators? It would seem that students losing their tuition money would not be the recruiters who are discriminating, so why should we punish them? Herein lies the dilemma. Is it fair to use ROTC students as pawns in this political tug-o-war? As a Democrat, I firmly believe in supporting the troops. Clearly something our current President has not done. Isn't this crossing the line? Would we be no better than conservatives if our body did pass this resolution?
We may do this to protest discrimination and an imperial occupation of another country, but in the end is it not true that the truth may not matter? Is it not the act itself, but how the media and the other side spin it what really matters?
Update [2005-8-11 18:4:5 by jbiddy]: So far the comments have been great. Most people seem to be echoing the same view I share, which is why punish the few who benefit from the program just to state an opinion. A thank you to white blitz for the suggestion of a timetable so that current Freshman can complete the program. I am still against this resolution, but I will make the recommendation that it be ammended to reflect a timetable at the very least.