Robert J. Baror '00-'01, a member of the council, said approving the ROTC as a student group would cause no drastic changes.

"We're not talking about people running around in camouflage on the Harvard campus. That's not going to happen," Baror said.

But allowing ROTC to poster and recruit students on the Harvard campus as any other student group can, Baror said, is only fair.

He argued that it is a disservice to students to ban a group from campus that provides such sizable scholarships.

"Knowing about ROTC can mean the difference between having a comfortable college experience or having to scrap all the time and just barely getting by," Baror said.

Jeffery A. Letalien '01, a council representative and a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club, argued strenuously that Harvard should not attempt to interfere in matters of military policy.

"The military is not a laboratory for social experimentation, nor should it be," he said.

Several panelists said they were working on a revision of the bill that would be more of a compromise. But Yvonne M. Kao '00, who recently contracted to serve in the Marine Corps after graduation, warned against attempting to dictate changes to established military policies.