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The conference program on the sponsors’ website promises to air a “wide range of viewpoints” on what happened and why, but the list of speakers shows no range at all—everyone seems to be a proud ex-protester or at least a familiar partisan of the Left. While Todd Gitlin (formerly the president of Students for a Democratic Society, now at Columbia’s journalism school) is a sober and reflective thinker, most of his fellow speakers are far from that standard. They include Kathleen Cleaver, Eldridge Cleaver’s widow and a former Black Panther official; veteran activist Tom Hayden; several former members of the...

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2008 – Nick Jackson wakes up earlier and has longer days than most freshmen at the University of Cincinnati, and once a week his clothes are selected for him. But unlike most students here, Jackson, one in about 30 cadets enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, will graduate school without debt and with a job awaiting him. “I decided to take the scholarship for financial reasons, but then once I got in here and I met everybody and I’m friends with everybody, it’s turning into something else,” said Jackson, dressed in Army camouflage as...

Dustin Bonilla and Christina Eaves of Mar Vista High's Navy Junior ROTC competed in a color guard competition SAN DIEGO – From the bleachers, all you could hear were brief responses like “Aye aye, sir!” The shouting was clearer on the football field, especially beyond the west end-zone at Patrick Henry High School. Dozens of students from 12 high schools were competing in a field meet yesterday. Each student was a cadet with the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. All wore the same Navy-issued uniform: a short-sleeved white dress shirt, black pants, black shoes and a narrow cap...

Faculty objects to receiving funding from armed forces due to 'don't ask, don't tell' policy SSU maintains an anti-discrimination policy that extends to contracts with outside entities and severed its ties to the Army after complaints from the faculty. The Army was committed to spending $15,000 on the Ron Logsdon Basketball Classic, a four-team tournament in December. The event would have been renamed the Ron Logsdon Classic presented by the U.S. Army, Athletic Director Bill Fusco said. SSU Provost Eduardo Ochoa said the administration will provide the lost funding for this year's tournament, but the athletic department will have to...

Reactions from homeowners, students lack respect for ROTC morning training Dear Editor, As the officer in charge of the Ripon ROTC program, I would like to ask the student body's assistance in the training of our Cadets. As many students have observed, our cadets conduct physical training three times a week from 6-7 in the morning. We routinely jog in formation through city streets, call cadences and train in the vicinity of the college. Most mornings, we use city roads south of Fond du Lac St. and the college campus to conduct our physical training. The ROTC program is not...

This fall, conservatives have cause to redouble our efforts in the ongoing campus-military war, for the left has recently suffered two strategic setbacks in its fight to prevent students from meeting with military recruiters and participating in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) on campus. First, thanks to the oversight of Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Department of Defense (DOD) in May proposed stringent internal guidelines for enforcing the Solomon amendment, and second, thanks to a September 2nd Circuit Court ruling, academia lost its self-proclaimed “last” legal battle seeking exemption from the Solomon amendment. For those not familiar with...

The controversial demise of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps in San Francisco schools scheduled for this spring will likely be put off for at least a year because the school district hasn't developed a promised replacement program. The expected reprieve would drag out what has already been a protracted and emotional battle over the district's 90-year tie to the military program. Still, supporters say the prospect of an extra year offers hope that JROTC could survive in San Francisco. The school board voted last November to phase out JROTC over two years because of its connection to the military,...

COLUMBIA University Presi dent Lee Bollinger yester day made some cutting crit icisms while introducing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - but that doesn't make the school's decision to offer a platform to the head of a violent terrorist state any less abject, squalid or shameless. "Abject, squalid, shameless" is how Winston Churchill described the resolution passed by Oxford University's prestigious Debating Union in 1933 - the year Adolf Hitler came to power - that "this House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country." And Columbia's event, like the 1933 Oxford resolution, sent (to quote Churchill again) a "very...

So, in the end, Monday the Iranian wild man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a dressing down from the man who had invited him -- in the name of free speech, you understand -- to speak at Columbia University. Likely, by time for the speech, Columbia President Lee Bollinger had no choice other than to perfume himself against the stench from a statesman who proposes to exterminate Israel, presides over one of the world's least free regimes and may, to boot, have a secret nuclear weapons program going. Bollinger had been getting unshirted hell from reasonable people displeased -- as why wouldn't...

Columbia University has rightfully been under fire for inviting Iran's President to speak to its student body. Now Columbia's Dean is not only defending the decision, but says that Columbia would offer a platform for Hitler to come and speak if he were alive and in America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxmEGsOkEVc So, there you have Dean John Coatsworth of Columbia University was on Fox News late last week telling the world that Hitler would be invited to speak at Columbia, were he available. Wonderful. But how do you square this against the decision by Columbia to un-invite the founder of the Minutemen? How...

Chicago "homer" refs are hosing the Dallas Cowboys... Updated: 9:49 PM 09/23/07 FOX 5 in NYC, Me, 7:05am...MONDAY Updated: 8:46 PM 09/23/07 BIG THANKS to PunditReview and Dean Barnett... Updated: 8:34 PM 09/23/07 <a href="http://ads.townhall.com/accipiter/adclick/CID=000127050000000000000000/site=TOWNHALL/area=TownHall.Web.Columnists.DineshDSouza/POSITION=TOWN_SKY/AAMGEOIP=68.112.78.1"> <img src="http://media.townhall.com/townhall/townhall-logo.gif" alt="" width="160" height="600" border="0"> </a> Ahmadinejad is in, ROTC is out By Dinesh D'Souza Monday, September 24, 2007 President Lee Bollinger of Columbia University is a very open-minded guy, in his own opinion. In inviting the Iranian prime minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia, he issued this statement. "Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas...Necessarily...

SOUTHWEST ASIA, Sept. 17, 2007 — Two lieutenant colonels with the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing bring the words "once a wingman, always a wingman" to life, showing how Air Force ties transcend barriers of time and distance. "The relationships you develop while deployed will help you later in your Air Force journey. Building these bonds helps us get the mission accomplished and is what makes us the best Air Force in the world. We have a history. This is what it's all about -- and that's how we roll." Lt. Col. Kelly Goggin Proving the Air Force is getting smaller,...

FSM Contributing Editor W. Thomas Smith, Jr. offers advice to his newly graduated nephew. It’s a letter written for a young man, but all young adults – men and women – would do well to follow its 25 points.

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2007 – The nation’s leaders gathered today to recognize a group of young people taking the first step toward leading America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates commissioned 55 ROTC cadets and midshipmen today at the White House in a ceremony attended by President Bush and other political and military leaders. The new officers represent all 50 states, four territories and the District of Columbia. This is the first time a joint ROTC commissioning ceremony has been held, and the first time a defense secretary has administered the oath of commissioning. Previously,...

LANCASTER[CA] Braving the windy, chilly weather, more than 80 people came to the Lancaster Cemetery on Sunday to remember the Holocaust and the heroism of those who fought against the Nazis, including those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. "The fact that it is cold and windy and somewhat inclement is not inappropriate," said Rabbi David Hoffman of congregation Beth Knesset Bamidbar in Lancaster. "The people in the Warsaw Ghetto experienced much worse." Sunday's service of remembrance was held on the Jewish day of Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, or day for remembrance for the Holocaust and the Heroism. "We know...

A few dozen members of the Catholic Worker movement staged a protest in front of the University of Notre Dame’s administration building today, saying the university’s ROTC program contradicts Catholic teaching. “It saddens us that one of the preeminent universities is training warriors,” said the Rev. Ben Jimenez, a Catholic priest from Cleveland. The protest ended as Notre Dame police quietly pulled some of the protesters aside -- fewer than a dozen in all. The protesters were doing a re-enactment of the martyrdom of St. Marcellus, a third-century soldier who became a conscientious objector after he’d converted to Christianity. As...

Tempers flare at ROTC Rally Groups nearly come to blows outside Student Union By: Wes Rahn, Collegian Staff Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: News Approximately 30 students shouted anti-war sentiments at speakers at the Student Union yesterday to protest a student rally, held by the Republican Club. Media Credit: Cristian Gomez/Collegian Approximately 30 students shouted anti-war sentiments at speakers at the Student Union yesterday to protest a student rally, held by the Republican Club. An organized, on-campus rally in support of ROTC erupted in conflict yesterday as members of the audience shouted their anti-military sentiments at the three featured speakers. The...

Today wasn't a good day for outdoor photography, but this is the first picture of my grandson in his uniform. They grow up much too fast. He was just a baby this time last year!

I sit here, literally adrift, trying to decide if I am more aghast, offended or innured to this latest attack on my fundamental beliefs. My Son is in his Freshman year of High School. Before the School Term started he chose ROTC as one of his electives..... Not so far a stretch since both his Father and I served in the Army... as well as our Ancestors before us. I'll admit that having both been in Basic with "Rotsies" as we called them, as well as serving under a few Officers that had little else in the way of training...

"In the first place God made idiots," observed Mark Twain. "This was for practice. Then he made school boards." The San Francisco Board of Education's 4-2 vote last week to abolish the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, which has been active in the city's high schools for 90 years, tends to support his view. Why is JROTC being done away with? It isn't for lack of interest. More than 1,600 San Francisco students currently take part in its voluntary activities. "Kids love this program as if it's family," notes the San Francisco Chronicle. It is "a program that students...