According to the Globe, Garland took the lead as a leftist student group pushed a referendum to reaffirm the school’s ban on ROTC. The referendum was rebuffed as the administration assured them that there were no plans to bring ROTC back to campus, but Garland’s group vowed to press forward.
At Harvard, Garland urged debate on ROTC
By Annie Linskey
March 19, 2016
WASHINGTON — As a Harvard student government leader in the early 1970s, Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, played a key role in efforts to hold a referendum that would have asked students if the university should end its campus ban on the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.
The episode was an early test of Garland’s skills as a mediator on a highly emotional issue that roiled the university. More than 40 years later, it could give Senate Republicans opposing his nomination to the high court ammunition to say he did not sufficiently defend the US military in the face of left-wing activists.
Under pressure from a leftist group called the New American Movement, which had gathered 2,500 signatures, Garland asked a student-faculty steering committee to formally initiate debate on a campuswide referendum in October 1973 that asked whether the university should allow ROTC to return to campus, or keep its policy that effectively banned the group.
Garland sounded optimistic that the referendum would occur, predicting then that “chances are pretty good” that a larger student committee would sponsor the referendum, a key step in getting it before the full student body, according to an article at the time in the Harvard Crimson, the student-run paper, which chronicled the saga.
At a time of anti-Vietnam War protests and student activism, such a vote probably would have shown the student body overwhelmingly favored keeping the ban in place — placing intense pressure on the Harvard administration to continue the ban.
Indeed, as the threat of a referendum loomed, the administration signaled that no move was afoot to relax the ROTC ban, according to Crimson reports at the time. As a result, the larger student committee, including Garland, voted to scuttle the referendum effort — but on a provisional basis, as long as the administration did not propose lifting the ROTC ban.
Garland, now chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, declined to be interviewed for this article, as is customary for Supreme Court nominees.
A person familiar with the judge’s thinking said he never passed judgment on the underlying question of the referendum, only whether the question should be asked.
But any whiff of an antimilitary record will raise red flags for Republicans, who are refusing, with the ideological balance of the court at stake, to consider Obama’s pick at this point in the president’s term.
When Obama nominated Elena Kagan to serve as a justice, she answered questions about a policy she supported as the dean of Harvard Law School that denied military recruiters access to students through official school channels. The Harvard policy was a response to the prohibition against openly gay military service members. Kagan ultimately won her Supreme Court seat.
The 1973 controversy opens a small window into Garland’s activities on a hot-button issue while still an undergraduate at Harvard — and includes a twist that revealed how even then he found ways to blaze a path to center.
Days after the steering committee approved a larger debate on the referendum at his suggestion, Garland voted to prevent what would have probably been a divisive vote from occurring.
Garland therefore managed to bring up the idea of holding a referendum, which put pressure on the protest-weary Harvard administration, and then also participate in blocking it to avoid further inflaming a divisive campus fight.
The military training organization had been effectively banned from the campus in 1969, a year before Garland arrived at Harvard. “It was not the time to revisit that issue,” said David Johnson, who was at Harvard with Garland and was also a student representative who voted on the ROTC issue.
Johnson, in a phone interview with the Globe, said there was deep skepticism among student leaders about the New American Movement, a self-described organization of “revolutionaries” that was trying to push the referendum.
“I had the feeling at the time that groups like NAM were trying to use us for an agenda,” Johnson said. He called NAM “a very radical organization that didn’t have a great deal of standing or credibility” at Harvard at the time.
The ROTC issue reared up at Harvard in the summer before Garland’s senior year, in June 1973, when then-Harvard president Derek Bok gave a speech that many students believed would open the possibility of bringing the military training organization back on campus.
“I do not believe our record and our conscience can be fully clear until we manifest our willingness to entertain a ROTC program on terms compatible with our usual institutional standards,” Bok said.
NAM brought its 2,500 signatures to the executive board of the Committee on Housing and Undergraduate Life in October 1973, and asked to put the referendum item on the larger committee’s agenda.
Garland, who was at the time a Harvard senior representing his residence hall Quincy House, was the student who offered up the proreferendum agenda item, according to the Harvard Crimson. All six members — Garland and two other students, plus three faculty members voted yes, the newspaper paper reported.
Then, when the item came to a vote before the full Committee on Housing and Undergraduate Life, Garland joined all of the members voted against the referendum. Several students on the committee explained they had received assurances from the Harvard Administration that there were not plans to bring ROTC back on campus, and the referendum was therefore unnecessary.
Garland and another student on the committee, told the school newspaper that the referendum would be revisited if the administration took steps to bring ROTC back.
Garland, along with Johnson, “stressed that the refusal to hold a referendum is provisional,” according to the Crimson coverage. The paper reported that both Garland and Johnson agreed: “Discussion of the issue will revive instantly if the faculty starts to move” toward bringing the ROTC program back.
“A lot of us don’t want ROTC to ever come back here,” Johnson said, according to the paper. With no vote by Harvard students that year, the issue “fizzed out,” the Crimson wrote. Another 39 years would pass before Harvard lifted its ban, in 2012.
BACKGROUND
After A Harvard Dean Assured There Were “No Schemes In The Works To Bring The Military Back,” CHUL Voted Unanimously To Refuse NAM’s Proposal. “Is ROTC an issue at Harvard? President Bok, Dean Rosovsky and the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) think it is not, despite Bok’s June speech hinting it might return. The New American Movement and 2500 students who signed NAM petitions think it is. Last week, the will of President Bok, Dean Rosovsky and CHUL prevailed as the Committee voted unanimously to refuse NAM s proposal that CHUL conduct a referendum among undergraduates on ROTC. Rosovsky told the Wednesday CHUL meeting that there were no schemes in the works to bring the military back to Harvard, and the Committee was satisfied with his explanation.” (Daniel Swanson, “CHUL Nixes ROTC Poll,” The Harvard Crimson, 10/13/73)
- CHUL Member David Johnson, On The Committee Meeting: “We Were Satisfied That ROTC Is Not An Issue Now.” “‘We asked Rosovsky some pointed, direct questions at the meeting,’ David L. Johnson ’74, the Adams House CHUL representative, said last week. ‘He seemed to be pretty square on what he was saying. We were satisfied that ROTC is not an issue now."”(Daniel Swanson, “CHUL Nixes ROTC Poll,” The Harvard Crimson, 10/13/73)
“NAM Spokesmen Vigorously Disagreed With CHUL’s Pronunciation That ROTC Is Not Currently An Issue.” “The CHUL also elicited two other safeguards from Rosovsky–the Dean promised to inform them immediately if the ROTC issue does rear its head in the Faculty and he offered to invite Bok to next month’s CHUL meeting to answer questions about ROTC. Johnson explained that last week’s CHUL vote was ‘not a final solution.’ NAM spokesmen vigorously disagreed with CHUL’s pronunciation that ROTC is not currently an issue. ‘The CHUL is assuming that students should wait for Faculty or Administration initiatives before voicing their opinions on issues,’ a NAM statement released after the vote said.” (Daniel Swanson, “CHUL Nixes ROTC Poll,” The Harvard Crimson, 10/13/73)
Garland And Johnson Said The Refusal To Hold A Referendum Was Provisional And CHUL Would Revive The Issue If The Faculty Started To Move On It. “Johnson acknowledged CHUL had been ‘reluctant to turn down 2500 signatures,’ but he added that Committee members saw no need for immediate action. Both he and Merrick B. Garland ’74, the Quincy House CHUL member, stressed that the refusal to hold a referendum is provisional, and that CHUL discussion of the issue will revive instantly if the Faculty starts to move on it.” (Daniel Swanson, “CHUL Nixes ROTC Poll,” The Harvard Crimson, 10/13/73)
Johnson: “A Lot Of Us Don’t Want ROTC To Ever Come Back Here … We Felt That Today’s CHUL Resolution Is The Best Way To Keep That From Ever Happening.” “‘A lot of us don’t want ROTC to ever come back here,’ Johnson explained. ‘We felt that today’s CHUL resolution is the best way to keep that from ever happening.’” (Daniel Swanson, “CHUL Nixes ROTC Poll,” The Harvard Crimson, 10/13/73)