Twenty six years ago, hundreds of students forcefully took over University Hall and demanded that the University cut all its ties to ROTC.

Back then, students opposed the Vietnam War and ROTC became a casualty of their hatred because it represented an "alliance between the University and the war-makers."

Ultimately, the faculty pushed ROTC off campus and allowed Harvard students to cross-register in ROTC courses at MIT without receiving Harvard credit.

Discrimination by the military wasn't even a consideration of the students of the late 1960s.

"It wasn't an issue back then," says Kenneth M. Glazier '69, who chaired the Student-Faculty Advisory Council as an undergraduate.

But for many of the alumni who protested against ROTC in the late 1960s, the military's policy on gays is definitely a relevant issue today.

Richard E. Hyland '69, who chaired the discussion of the 450 students who took over University Hall in 1969, recalls an incident at last June's 25th reunion exercises.

At the very first meeting of the week, Hyland says, alumni gathered in Sanders Theatre to question Rudenstine, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles and other prominent University officials.

The most oft-expressed concern of the members of his class, according to Hyland, was Harvard's treatment of the ROTC issue in light of the military's continuing discriminatory practices.

Hyland says Rudenstine and the other administrators defended Harvard's record with the program.

"Their argument was that 'everything you've asked us to do [regarding ROTC], we've done,'" Hyland says.

Rudenstine and other officials assured the alumni that the issue would "be resolved in an appropriate manner," Hyland says.

The Class of '69, Hyland notes, went on to break records for alumni donations--largely because of contributions made that week.

But Hyland believes that the University wasn't playing it straight with the alumni that day.

"They got benefit out of it," charges Hyland, who is now a professor of law at Rutgers University. "For them now to come back and [make the current proposal], it does violate the spirit of the kind of communication that we were making in Sanders."