"Yeah, ending legal discrimination against gays - what an "excuse"! As for homosexuality and the culture war ending - not if Harvey and his philosophers kings have anything to do with it. Some of them have already talked about reinstating DADT. But you know what other phony complaint they have? This BS about admissions standards. Back in Harvey's halcyon "liberal education" days, the place was filled with subpar students of alumni. No gays, but lots of feckless spolied brats - good times! (And didn't Harvey get Bill into Harvard as a favor to Irving in the first place? Talk about a decline in standards!)"
Wow! Reading comprehension levels have clearly declined on this board, if not at Harvard. I am totally against DADT and am no fan of Harvey Mansfield, Bill Kristol or the legacy-filled Ivies of yore. Did I say the culture war was ending? I said one "episode" in same was happily ending.
All this angry misreading because I made the simple point that any reasonable person should accept;the status of gays in the military was NOT the origin of the anti-ROTC policies in the Ivies and, yes, it was an excuse for people who didn't want ROTC to come back but eventually realized anti-military prejudice wasn't an argument the institution could officially embrace. I said "something between a reason and an excuse" b/c for some people it WAS a sincere objection. Younger people don't know the history behind this policy so they can take the DADT rationale at face value, but it's disingenuous if not ignorant to claim that's the whole story behind the exclusion. It's not like the last chopper left Saigon and the Ivy Presidents all started talking about gays in the military the next week.