By Leslie Albrecht
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — The hecklers are outnumbered. A survey of Columbia University students released Thursday revealed that 60 percent want the Reserve Officers Training Corps — ROTC — to come back to campus after a 42-year absence from the Ivy League school.
The pro-ROTC stance flies in the face of the anti-military reputation the university was painted with following a public forum where students heckled an injured Iraq war vet who spoke in favor of ROTC.
Pundits and online commenters unleashed a firestorm of criticism against the elite institution, complaining that it's out of touch with mainstream America.
But in an online poll of students [PDF], 60 percent said they approved of allowing ROTC to return to campus, while 33 percent of students said they didn't approve, and 7 percent said they didn't know or didn't have an opinion.
As to the question of whether students should be allowed to participate in ROTC on or off campus, 79 percent said they approved, 13 percent didn't approve and 8 percent said they didn't know or didn't have an opinion.
Right now Columbia students can participate in ROTC, but they have to commute to Fordham University to do it.
Of 11,629 eligible students, 2,252 completed the survey.
The university's senate, an 108-member governing body made up of students, faculty, and administration, is weighing whether to invite the military training program, which was ousted during the Vietnam War, back to the Ivy League School.
But the decision could be largely meaningless. An Army ROTC spokesman said Wednesday that the Army has no plans to launch new ROTC programs at Columbia or any other schools, even if they're invited back.
Representatives of the senate declined to comment.
Hundreds of students, faculty and staff have spoken out on the ROTC issue.
In public e-mails to the task force, some have said allowing the military on campus conflicts with the university's mission of teaching critical thinking.
"The military establishment is designed to crush individual and critical thought," wrote one commenter. "The military establishment is geared towards one thing, namely the destruction of lives, which is antithetical to the academy...A yes vote to ROTC is an endorsement of militarism, it is a yes to misogyny, and it is a yes to the current wars which have destroyed thousands of lives."
Others have argued that the military is an honorable profession that deserves a place on campus.
"The effort to expunge the military from campus is misplaced and dangerous; it prevents students and faculty from seeing first-hand an important portion of American society," wrote a commenter in favor of ROTC.
