In recent weeks and months, the most talked-about political issue at Stanford has been the potential return of an integrated ROTC program to campus. The debate has taken a variety of forms – in classrooms, in editorials, in faculty meetings, and even in town hall discussions – but there is a common misperception that the opposing sides in this issue fall solely along traditional political lines, that is, those on the Right in favor and those on the Left opposed.
These traditional bounds have begun to fade away however, with many left-of-center students and faculty recently backing the return of ROTC, and even President Barack Obama supporting the idea in his State of the Union Address: “I call on all of our college campuses to open their doors to our military recruiters and the ROTC. It is time to leave behind the divisive battles of the past. It is time to move forward as one nation.”
The Left on ROTC
At Stanford, two groups have been particularly involved in opposing the return of ROTC to Stanford. Stanford Says No to War, led by Danny Colligan, has argued against ROTC on various grounds and has developed an anti-ROTC website.
Another group, Stanford Students for Queer Liberation (SSQL), has become more vocal about the military’s position on transgendered students since the initial repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Janani Balasubramanian, a member of SSQL, stated that as long as ROTC continues its de facto discrimination against transgendered students, SSQL cannot support its return to campus, as that would be “a fundamental endorsement of something that is exclusionary to a particular marginalized population of students.”
Alok Vaid-Menon, another SSQL member, argued, “This is a very symbolic debate more than anything.” He explained that because some Stanford students already participate in ROTC programs at nearby universities, it may be a stretch for ROTC to put a training ground on Stanford’s campus. This would make it entirely possible that an official ROTC program on campus would be not so far off from the current system in place.
But not everyone on the Left opposes ROTC at Stanford.
“[I don’t think] that this breaks down on a strict left-right spectrum in the way it perhaps once did,” remarked Zev Karlin-Neumann of the Stanford Democrats. While Karlin-Neumann personally supports the return of ROTC, he does not speak for the Stanford Democrats, which has taken a neutral position.
“There are a number of lingering issues,” he continued, “the fact that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell still has to undergo a review and certification before being officially repealed, the continued discrimination of transgendered individuals…I generally see these issues as reasons to bring ROTC back, not keep it out,” Karlin-Neumann said.
Daniel Khalessi, another Stanford Democrat, commented, “I do not think it’s an issue that has support and opposition along stringent party lines.” He, like Karlin-Neumann, stressed the importance of the transference of diversity between Stanford and the military.
But some do not consider Stanford Democrats as part of the “Left.” Colligan gives his view of someone on the Left: “I would say someone is Left if they are committed to peace, justice, human rights, law, egalitarianism, internationalism and all that good stuff.” He continued, “Sadly, these principles cannot be found in the Democrats’ governance.”
Balasubramanian also has qualms about the Democrat’s inclusion in the Left. “If we see Stanford Democrats as a subset of larger Democratic policy, I’m not sure if I personally would view Stanford Democrats as a party of the Left,” she stated.
Chris Chelberg ’10 commented on this division in liberal politics at Stanford: “The ‘Left’ encompasses such a huge set of viewpoints that parts of it easily take up stances that block or interfere with other sections of the Left.” When asked about the actual opposition to ROTC, Chelberg stated, “I don’t think there’s as much opposition as there might seem, in terms of numbers.”
A recent Stanford Daily poll suggests that approximately two-thirds of respondents support ROTC’s return. As Stanford, like most college campuses, has a strong left-of-center presence, this underscores the notion that left-leaning students might be split on the issue.
The interesting caveat of this particular political debate over ROTC, especially considering the tone of most political rhetoric in the past few years, is that it is not a pitted battle of Left vs. Right. Rather, it is a far more complicated issue of ideology and practicality that does not so comfortably fall along traditional lines of political identity.
Unifying the Left on Campus
Just how prominent then is the activist Left on campus? Chelberg stated, “I’d say that the activist Left does not make up a large portion of the students on campus. At least if you’re counting groups that actually go out and do things, then they’re not that big at all.”
Vaid-Menon believes that the level of activism on the Left at Stanford is disproportionately low considering what one would expect of the number of students who identify with progressive or left-leaning ideologies on campus.
But some liberal activists are trying to reshape the presence of Leftist activism on campus. Donni Wang is working to organize a “Grand Left Coalition,” a group that will provide a forum for discussion and organization among liberal-leaning groups.
Wang sees issues besides ROTC on which the Left can unify, like “the staggering economic, racial, gender and other divides in the U.S., the environmental crisis, the ongoing violent wars, [and] the financial malaise of global capitalism.”
Vaid-Menon is also trying to create a “community of the Left” with a new email list for progressive group leaders. “I think that we’re starting to see more of a need for unifying among the Left, because what’s happening right now is that we are focusing too much on our own specific issues.”
When asked about the difficulty of creating a unifying banner for a political cluster that ranges from moderates that are left-of-center to socialists, Wang argues, “Our work at the GLC is precisely to bridge differences that might arise by invoking our common core values of justice, equality, and emancipation.”
The true prominence of the activist Left and the general sentiments of the student body will have a chance to be exhibited in the coming months as the debate over the return of ROTC reaches its climax.
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I am struck that you would characterize the GLC as working to advocate “discussion and organization among liberal-leaning groups.” The authors of this piece join the loud chorus of people who view the political debate as liberal vs. conservative, using the two to signify broad generalizations about what either side believes. This is problematic in itself, but an even bigger problem is that it uses this fictional binary to include the “Left” (in itself another fictional binary with the counterpart, of course of Right). The Left is a historical relic from the times of the French Revolution, “referring to the seating arrangement in the Estates General; those who sat on the left generally supported the radical changes of the revolution, including the creation of a republic and secularization.” The key word here is “radical”: the Left has historically been opposed to power, whether that power takes the form of the Church, the Military Establishment, Patriarchy, etc. The use of the term liberal to group the Left is misleading: while liberals exist (and are certainly “left” of, say, a fascist), the liberal acceptance of markets alone today makes the modern liberal a tentative radical at best. At worst, one could, with some plausibility argue that liberalism has been thoroughly inscribed into dominant power structures and is, if anything, the ideology at work behind modern day establishments. Both the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, two of the most widely read newspapers by America (and the world’s) political establishment are broadly neo-Liberal (some would say libertarian, but that word in itself has a whole charged history I would get into).
In today’s world, one of the indexes of any kind of radical engagement (whether it be cultural, political, social etc) is defined by on some level questioning, if not outright condemning, markets. Liberals, in simplified terms, do not do this. From the beginning of the movement, liberals have been pro-Market, pro-globalization and pro-individual rights. If these things today are radical, then radicalism has become not a questioning of the existing order but rather its affirmation.
IF THIS IS TOO LONG AND YOU DONT CARE, HERE’S THE TAKEAWAY:
Liberal is not the same thing as Leftist. If you are confused about why this is the case, do yourself a favor and engage with the work of a thinker like Slavoj Zizek, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Theodor Adorno or Walter Benjamin. Not only will your fuzzy professors love you, it might even interest you!