It promises to be a hard, tough fight--a fight whose battleground is the campus, whose weapons are words, and whose soldiers are determined students.

This year will likely see the conclusion of a long-standing debate about whether Harvard should sever all ties with the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).

Some say it should, claiming the military's policy banning homosexuals can't be supported by a university that considers itself "nondiscriminatory."

Others say it shouldn't, insisting that denying the scholarship will only hurt financially strapped students.

Still others cite the University's unfair treatment of the ROTC program as a reason to stick with the status quo.

Homosexuals, cadets, the ROTC program itself--who are the biggest victims? Which will be the casualty of war?

Only the Faculty Council has the power to decide.

Military History

Currently, there is no ROTC program on Harvard's campus. The College awards ROTC scholarships, but forces students to travel to MIT for ROTC classes and drills. That's been the policy since the late '60s--the height of anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the nation--when the program was effectively banned from campus.

The issue resurfaced 20 years later, when the Under-graduate Council voted to work towards bringing ROTC back to campus. That student government vote, in April of 1989, sparked an outpouring of daily heated protests, leading the council to repeal its original request just one week later.

Then, in the spring of 1990, the Faculty Council decided to reconsider its practice of accepting ROTC scholarships. The council's discussion came in the wake of widespread controversy about ROTC, centered around the fate of Harvard student and ROTC candidate David E. Carney '89.

Carney, described as a "model cadet," was denied his ROTC scholarship after telling the military he was gay. Gay and lesbian groups on campus and in the community cried foul.

Faculty Council members decided that if the military's policy towards homosexuals didn't make "sufficient progress" in two years, the organization would consider severing all ties with ROTC.

The two-year deadline is fast approaching, and according to Navy Commander David C. Finch, the requisite progress hasn't been made.

"The military from my perspective hasn't made any change on that issue," says Finch, executive officer at the Navy ROTC unit at Boston University.