ROTC Marches Through the Ivy League

Spurred on by Don't Ask Don't Tell's scheduled repeal, Columbia and Yale Universities are signing an agreement on Thursday allowing the Reserve Officer Training Corps back on campus for the first time in decades. Both schools will now have Naval ROTC programs that can use school facilities, making it more convenient for enrolled students to participate in the porgram and presumably easier for the military to recruit.

Since Congress repealed DADT--the policy that barred gays from openly serving in the military--the Ivy League has been expected to reopen its gilded doors for the program, even if there hasn't been a boom of new interest from students. In light of two schools opening their campuses, here's an at-a-glance view of the ROTC status for a few other of the nation's most prestigious institutions:

Harvard University: In early March, the institution ended nearly 40 years of its no-ROTC-on-campus policy by signing an agreement to allow the Naval program back on campus. Conservatives rejoiced.
Princeton University: In May, The Daily Princetonian reported that DADT wasn't likely to change the university's policy, which is that ROTC programs have access to classrooms and office equipment but is considered an "outside" extracurricular activity.
Brown University: The school hasn't allowed ROTC on campus since 1969 and still doesn't. But, in April, the school's newspaper reported that nearly half of the student body favored a repeal of the ban.

• Cornell University: it never banned the ROTC program, even when other schools did originally during the Vietnam war. It currently hosts three branches of the military (Army, Navy, Air Force) on campus.
• Dartmouth College: Norwich University runs the ROTC program, but it is allowed on campus. After the repeal of DADT, the school's newspaper foresaw "few immediate changes" to the program already in place.
• University of Pennsylvania: As the Daily Pennyslvanian noted after the repeal, the school's program has been active since 1940 and the class of 2010 graduated 35 students.

Want to add to this story? Comment below or send the author of this post, Erik Hayden, Open Wire.