IN 1990, Harvard took a principled stand on ending systematic discrimination in the U.S. military against lesbians, bisexuals and gays. Last week, it waffled.

On Wednesday, the Faculty Council voted to dump its ultimatum to the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in favor an ageold stall tactic: they want to study the problem further. Specifically, the council gave its committee on ROTC an extension in preparing its report until next fall.

"There are lots of people who have views on the subject," said Pforzheimer University Professor Sidney Verba '53, chair of the ROTC committee. "We wanted to make sure that we have heard from everyone."

But Verba's invocation of open discussion is a distraction. The only issue is whether the University will tolerate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The council should immediately reverse its decision, and it should include other discriminatory scholarships as well. In fact, it's time that the University revamp the way it thinks about how students pay Harvard's bills.

OFFICIALLY, Harvard says it will not recognize organizations that engage in such discrimination. But by continuing to accept ROTC scholarship money, the University ignores this policy.

Verba and the council never would have succeeded with the delay had the discrimination involved other minority groups. No study would be called for if ROTC denied its funds to, say, Blacks.

By backing down from its ultimatum, the University offers a poor precedent for other schools and an empty threat to the Pentagon. MIT and the University of Wisconsin, among other colleges, have considered cutting ties to ROTC.

But public schools such as Wisconsin often face state laws which require them to provide military education. It's up to private universities--especially those with Harvard's prestige--to take a stand.

Since the debate reopened last fall, some have argued that Harvard should wait on American politicians to change the military's policy and that Harvard's action would be a meaningless waste of energy that would hurt poor and middle class students who rely on ROTC funds.

They point to recent meetings by the Bush administration with a gay and lesbian group and Democratic presidential contender Bill Clinton's promising statement that he would end the ban on gays in the armed forces. The proper arena for the debate is the political one, they say.

But this attitude ignores Harvard's influence over other schools and the fact that if no schools accepted the discriminatory scholarships, ROTC would be forced to change. Besides, the real issue is that Harvard has the right--and the responsibility--to make ethical decisions about the sources of its funds.

As Harvard backpeddles, the military can both continue its policy (until at least 1997 at the College) and use rationales provided by the University to postpone change.

What about those students who could not afford to attend Harvard without ROTC funds?

The answer to the high costs of college education is not to accept money from discriminatory organizations.