Provost maintains status quo for ROTC

Rockville, MD The University will not change its relationship with Army and Navy ROTC after five years of negotiations with the Department of Defense, Provost Stanley Chodorow announced at the end of April. University officials had considered changing Penn's relationship with ROTC because the programs violate University's non-discrimination policy since they do not accept openly gay students. "The Pentagon does not move quickly on such matters, and the officials there cannot be expected to jump at a newmodel," Chodorow said in November. "The services are naturally cautious about change." In 1990 and 1993, University Council voted to recommend that Penn sever its ties to the ROTC programs and in 1994, Council passed a resolution calling on the University to pursue an "arm'slength" agreement with the Department of Defense. But the 1994 resolution, which offered three suggestions for alternative arrangements, did not call on the administration to server ties with ROTC if an "arm's-length"agreement could not be reached. Council is a committee of undergraduate and graduate students, staff, faculty members and administrators that meets the last Wednesday of every month in McClelland Hall to advise the president and provost on policy issues. The University sought a modification by which it would no longer provide Army and Navy ROTC with free office space or funds for secretaries, and would not give students credit for its courses or consider the instructors professors. Penn students participate in Air Force ROTC at St. Jospeh's University in Philadelphia. The University sought a similar commuter set up for Navy and Army ROTC. Chodorow said in December that the Navy was unwilling to modify its ROTC agreement with the University. But it was not until the middle of April before the Army finally turned down a new agreement. "We are now at the point where nothing is to be gained by negotiating any further," Chodorow said at Council's April 25 meeting, the last of the year. Chodorow also announced that the University will offer financial aid to any ROTC member who eaves the program because he or she is gay. Bob Schoenberg, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual center at Penn, said that by not acting against ROTC, the University is sanctioning discrimination.