In a speech this morning at Hudson Institute, McCain once again pointed out the disgrace of America’s elite universities having banned ROTC from their campuses:
“This week as well, Columbia University hosted Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust denier committed to the destruction of Israel, whose regime targets American soldiers with IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But while Columbia welcomed Iran’s leader on campus, one organization remains unwelcome on the Columbia campus: the ROTC. It is unconscionable that Columbia, Harvard and other great American universities remain closed to ROTC, whose graduates represent the bulk of the officers commissioned into our Armed Forces each year. Some academic elites may not like ROTC, and they are free to voice their objections. But they are wrong, and I stand with the many graduates of these institutions who for years have been trying in vain to bring ROTC back to their campuses. I fear for our future when terrorist leaders are welcome at our most prestigious centers of learning, universities conceived to strengthen and nurture the ideals of Western liberal political thought, and young men and women who volunteered to risk their lives to defend those ideals are not.”
