THE RIGHT THING – AT 10:12 A.M. ET:  Occasionally, an Ivy League school does the right thing.  Now, you have to look carefully for these rare events, but they do occur. 

About a month ago Harvard announced the return of NROTC to its exalted campus.  Applause, applause.

But no Ivy symbolized resistance to the military more than Columbia University in New York, where members of my family have put in ample time pursuing their degrees.  The Columbia student riots of the late sixties are still recalled, with pain by grown-ups, and admiration by children who remain children.

But there is good news from the Columbia lion today:

More than four decades after Columbia University, the heart of the Vietnam-era student movement, banned R.O.T.C. from campus in a moment of 1960s antimilitary rage, the University Senate voted overwhelmingly on Friday to support efforts to bring the group back. 

The vote — 51 to 17, with 1 abstention — came in support of a Senate resolution to “explore mutually beneficial relationships with the armed forces of the United States, including participation in the programs of the Reserve Officers Training Corps.” It followed a series of sometimes venomous campus meetings and found its impetus in President Obama’s signing three months ago of a bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuality.

Dissenters, both on- and off-campus, dissented with their usual reflection and wisdom:

One former Weatherman, Brian Flanagan, who still lives in the Columbia area, was unrepentantly critical of the military and the R.O.T.C. in a brief interview on Friday.

“The U.S. armed forces are a blight on the planet,” Mr. Flanagan said. “I don’t support soldiers — I think they’re war criminals. So obviously, I’m against R.O.T.C. coming back.”

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

Columbia, before the sixties, contributed enormously to national defense.  That contribution was heralded in Herman Wouk's great novel, "The Caine Mutiny."  Naval midshipmen in World War II lived in Furnald Hall, where I later lived.  More naval officers in that war were produced by Columbia than by the Naval Academy.  The Manhattan Project, the drive to produce the atomic bomb, was so named because Columbia, which played a critical role, is in Manhattan.  And, of course, as the story points out, Dwight D. Eisenhower served briefly as president of Columbia in the late 40s, although his tenure is ridiculed by the society of smugness at Columbia, which still resents the presence of a mere "Army man."

It's good to see Columbia taking the first steps to return to its former tradition.  The sixties be damned.

April 2, 2011