An alternative to banning military recruiters from college campuses

Both supporters and opponents of the Pentagon's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy seem to be spending a great deal of time and brain power on the issue of whether or not military recruiters should be banned from college campuses.

Harvard Law School, for example, has been going back-and-forth on this for a while. Last week, HLS agreed to allow military recruiters back on campus, reversing a previous decision to ban the Pentagon from recruiting there. The quick (and incomplete) history of the controversy is this:

Many law schools believe the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy conflicts with their own non-discrimination policies. As a result, schools have banned military recruiters from their campuses. The 1996 Solomon Amendment, meanwhile, dictates that the government can deny federal funding to universities that ban military recruiters or limit their activities on campus. So when it became clear Harvard would lose some serious research money if they didn't comply with the Pentagon, they allowed the recruiters on campus.

In an editorial in the Harvard Crimson in May, the newspaper offered a convincing argument for banning the recruiters:

"Harvard Law School requires all recruiters to sign a non-discrimination pledge to participate in on-campus activities, yet the military has refused to sign the pledge due to its explicit discrimination against the employment of homosexuals. Currently, their Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy prohibits openly gay individuals from serving in the military. Given the explicit contradiction with Harvard's anti-discrimination policies, the military has no right to recruit on campus."

On almost all points, I agree. While I won't here go into all the proof behind the following statements, I've linked to some sites that offer the basic arguments: The reasoning behind banning gays from the military is absurd. The Don't Ask Don't Tell policy is clearly discriminatory and ineffectual. The military would be better off, national security would be better off, if the Pentagon recruited the most qualified candidates and not just the most qualified heterosexual ones.

But there's a difference between being right and making change, and while banning recruiters may seem like the "right" thing to do, it doesn't seem to me to be the effectual thing to do. Why?


First, it seems to me this boycott won't work if loss of major money for the participants is involved: the purpose of a boycott is to force the boycotted company to change whatever policy has led to the boycott in the first place. This only works if a sizable number of consumers participate, or if a few powerful consumers do. Right now it seems as if there aren't enough schools boycotting to make a difference, and the direction of the Harvard case isn't a good sign. At the end of the day, money talks, and if the Feds can withhold it, I think the chances of major boycotts are unlikely. (This is not an argument against banning recruiters, rather simply my feeling as to why I don't think a ban would have much effect. I recognize that oftentimes there are things you have to do even if everyone else is doing the opposite, and in those cases, you may be able to persuade those in the majority to change their mind if you lead by example).

But even if a ban won't change the policy, defenders will say, it's a matter of principle. Why should I allow people to recruit on my campus who don't share my values of inclusion and non-discrimination?

Here's why: When it comes to gay rights, engagement is almost always more effective than disengagement. Having the representatives of a bigoted policy present on your campus, even recruiting on your campus, is an opportunity. Instead of banning the recruiters from campus, why not welcome them, and use their every visit as an occasion for an all-out assault on a dumb and homophobic policy?

The best way to fight homophobia is for more people to come out of the closet. If your cousin or your sister or your child is gay, you're less likely to be homophobic. This is not a controversial statement. Our most effective tool in stopping homophobia is ourselves; telling our stories, showing who we are.

Imagine this: Each time recruiters were scheduled to come to a given campus, all of the students, gay or not, who find Don't Ask Don't Tell morally reprehensible or just plain silly could organize themselves together. They could figure out which five or ten among them--gay and straight--are probably the most qualified to serve in whatever positions the recruiters are recruiting for. The object then would be to figure out a way to disseminate these students' stories in the most effective way possible (ads in the newspaper, press releases, exhibits on campus, etc.), with the underlying message being: These students (and students like them) are integral to our national security and our national interests. Read their stories and imagine what they could do for the country. They are refusing to join up because they are gay or because they don't believe sexual orientation has anything to do with whether one should be able to serve. What's more important: appeasing a small minority of powerful right wing homophobes or protecting the country?

Obviously, the idea isn't fully formed. The stories would need to be told in a visually appealing format and in clear, crisp writing. But the point is that each time a recruiter visited campus, it would be another chance to call attention to an unjust policy and work to get rid of it.

At the end of the day it seems to me more important to fight Don't Ask Don't Tell than the Solomon Amendment. Flooding a community with stories about real people who are really not serving, in opposition to a policy that is bigoted and detrimental to our national security, might be a viable alternative to a ban on recruiters that the (current) government seems intent on ending.