The most heated policy debate on campus raged on last night at a panel discussion asking "Should ROTC return to Harvard?"

The debate, sponsored by Diversity and Distinction, comes in the midst of an ongoing debate about a bill before the Undergraduate Council endorsing bringing the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program back to campus.

The legislation will come before a full council vote at their meeting this Sunday. When the bill was first docketed, many constituents voiced disapproval at a bill they saw as endorsing discrimination against gay students.

ROTC was banned from campus in 1969, with Harvard students involved in ROTC taking classes at MIT instead. In 1994, because officials felt the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards gays violated the University's non-discrimination policies.

"I was really dismayed and shocked that this sort of proposal would even make it out of committee," said panelist Anna M. Baldwin '00, a member of several gay activist groups.

Council Vice President Kamil E. Redmond '00 moderated the panel and requested that panelist keep their tempers under control. Last week, over 130 messages were sent to the uc-general newsgroup about the issue.

"We all recognize that this is a charged topic....I look nothing like Jerry Springer, and this is not going to turn into a talk show," Redmond said.

While tensions occasionally ran high, panel and audience members conducted a largely civilized debate surrounding the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and its relationship to the College's rules about non-discrimination.

"How can we welcome ROTC back on campus?" asked council member and panelist Alex A. Boni-Saenz '01, citing recorded cases of discrimination against gay soldiers and a rising number of soldiers being discharged in the aftermath of the policy's promulgation.