WILL NEW U of R PRESIDENT BAN THE MILITARY?
Let’s hope he’s changed his mind.
I’m talking about Joel Seligman, the new president of the University of Rochester. Let’s hope he’s changed his mind.
But before we go into that, let’s go over who he is.
Joel Seligman is going to be the next leader of the U of R, one of the great American universities and a cornerstone of the Rochester region.
The university is not only Rochester’s second-largest employer, it is also, through its various parts and pieces, an incredible force for good throughout the whole region. It educates people, it provides jobs, it produces technologies, it runs an astounding hospital and it is the home of the arts.
It is everything a community could want.
It is Rochester.
And Joel Seligman is going to be in charge.
He must be very talented. He must be highly skilled. He must have a lot going for him to have gotten the job.
But there’s something from the past.
One issue, some two or three or four years ago, of passing import but lasting significance.
It doesn’t disqualify him. It shouldn’t overshadow him. But it does matter. And it should be addressed.
It’s what he thinks about the military.
Specifically, it’s what he thinks about the military in the context of a college campus. And it relates directly to the University of Rochester in regard to whether or not Joel Seligman will allow military recruiters and ROTC personnel on campus.
If men and women wearing the uniform of the United States want access to the U of R campus and community, will Joel Seligman give it to them? Will the alma mater of the man who wrote the “Pledge of Allegiance” become hostile to the very armed forces that right now are fighting the war on terror?
I ask the question because of Joel Seligman’s track record.
At his last job, as dean of the law school at Washington University in St. Louis, Joel Seligman was a vocal and strident campaigner against allowing military recruiters on campus.
In comments to that college community, he said a law school policy barring the military from the school’s Career Services Office was a “moral and wise” thing. Additionally, he said that he found overturning that policy in order to avoid the loss of federal funding was “an occasion of true pain.”
Which is confusing.
See, I would think “an occasion of true pain” would be more like having your legs blown off by an improvised explosive device on the streets of Baghdad. I wouldn’t think that letting the Army put some pamphlets in the Career Services Office would be “an occasion of true pain.”
I’ve never personally considered it painful to be around members of the American armed forces.
And neither have I ever considered discrimination against them to be “moral and wise.” Rather, I think it is immoral and foolish to close your campus to the armed forces which make such a campus and a free society possible.
Particularly at a place like the University of Rochester, which has a record of patriotism and sacrifice in the military that is second to none.
Joel Seligman and the Washington University law school claim that the American military discriminates against homosexual people because of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Consequently, Joel Seligman and his law school decided to discriminate against the American military.
And when the threat of losing federal dollars forced Joel Seligman to allow recruiters onto his campus, he sent out a memo announcing that, “I will request that the Career Services Office place notices recognizing that the military recruitment practices are inconsistent with our school’s nondiscrimination policy.”
He had them put up posters spitting on the armed forces.
Now, this would all be ancient history except for a federal appeals court ruling recently in Philadelphia. A ruling that overturned something called the Solomon Amendment. That was the congressional provision, from 1995, which said colleges taking federal money had to take federal recruiters.
Two judges decided that such a rule violated colleges’ free speech rights, so now colleges can go back to violating the military’s free speech rights.
And that’s what brings this issue home.
If Joel Seligman is coming to Rochester, is he bringing his anti-military bigotry with him?
When the welcome mat is rolled out for Joel Seligman, will it be rolled up for the military? Will Joel Seligman ban military recruiters from the University of Rochester campus? Will he turn his back on the school’s ROTC program?
Those are the questions. And they deserve an answer.
Because, to most of the people in this community, if the recruiters are welcome, so is Joel Seligman.
But they’re not, neither is he.
Let’s hope he’s changed his mind.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2004
