At a commissioning ceremony last week for top graduating members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), President Bush criticized universities like Stanford, which ban the programs from their campuses.

In light of his critique, and our nation’s great need for future military leaders, it is time for Stanford to rethink its rationale for banning on-campus ROTC programs.

Brave American soldiers are fighting and dying on faraway battlefields every day. Sadly, those paying the ultimate price for the security of our country are disproportionately poor, raised in rural areas and not college educated. By forcing aspiring ROTC candidates to commute across the Bay to programs at UC-Berkeley or south to San Jose State, our University perpetuates this tragic inequity by implicitly discouraging many students from considering military service.

Our ROTC ban dates back to 1969, at the apogee of the anti-war movement. That year, the Faculty Senate voted to strip the ROTC program of its University affiliations, saying that the classes that comprised the ROTC curriculum did not meet Stanford’s baseline academic standards.

That decision undoubtedly reflected a strong undercurrent of anti-military sentiment born from opposition to the war in Vietnam. Such sentiment against the U.S. Armed Forces as an institution is not widely held by Stanford community members today — no matter what their political leanings or opinions regarding the United States’ current military campaigns.

It is clear that the purely academic rationale against allowing ROTC on campus does not have merit. Even if one were to accept the dubious argument that these leadership courses are qualitatively inferior to Stanford’s many recreational and athletic classes, this would only be an argument against allowing the program to offer credits toward a Stanford degree. This point is irrelevant to the question of whether ROTC should be allowed to function on campus and whether aspiring military personnel can have access to Stanford facilities in a manner akin to extra-curricular student groups.

In spite of these arguments in favor of lifting the moratorium against on-campus military training programs, it would be unfair to deny that consensus remains elusive. One of the most enduring justifications for the University’s current position is that the U.S. government’s law against allowing openly homosexual citizens to serve is discriminatory. Critics say allowing ROTC on campus would violate Stanford’s own anti-discrimination policies.

The Daily is sympathetic to the argument that the exclusion of homosexuals from the military is a compelling rationale to oppose ROTC on campus. Nonetheless, it is time to broach the issue once again. If “don’t ask, don’t tell” is indeed the reason for the ban, this should be made explicit by a new Faculty Senate vote.

During this time when we as a nation are asking for the greatest sacrifices of our servicemen and women, it is incumbent upon Stanford to make clear the principled basis on which it opposes a military presence on campus. We owe as much to those currently serving in our military, and to those members of our community who are preparing to join them.