Don't Ask Don't Tell and the URI Community

Author(s)

Justin Thames, University of Rhode Island

Date

5-2006

Comments

CONTRIBUTOR: Krajeski, Paul C. [faculty advisor, Department of Military Science] DATE: 2006 SUBJECT: Military policy SUBJECT: Politics FORMAT: Microsoft Word document, 41,472 bytes FORMAT: Microsoft Word document, 29,696 bytes 2006 URI Senior Honors Project

Keywords

don't ask don't tell; military policy; gay rights; activism; University of Rhode Island; public policy

Abstract

When Bill Clinton and his staff introduced the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Bill(US Code 10) it created quite a controversy. The bill was designed to replace the then current system of asking for an individual’s sexual orientation on a military application thus making homosexuality a barrier to service in the United States Armed Forces. The bill was finally passed in 1993 and is meant to keep people in power from discriminating on the basis of homosexuality. This new law requires that no investigations be launched to identify the sexual orientation of a service member nor will hearsay be allowed to start such an investigation. Homosexual conduct is defined in this bill as engaging in a homosexual act or marriage and is still a barrier to service in the military. Ironically this bill also saved the ROTC program at its inception, by replacing a blatantly discriminatory policy, but was later used as the fuel behind the most recent campaign to remove ROTC from campus. Some believe that the DADT policy violates the discrimination policy set up by universities across the nation and as a result ROTC should be removed from campus. I believe that their reasoning is not only misguided, but wrong. For the purposes of this project I have created a very informal survey to determine the opinions and attitudes towards the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy, ROTC, and homosexuality in general. While the survey is in no way meant to be a professional poll I hope it will at least semi-accurately gauge where the population of URI stands on some of these hot button issues