Correction appended.
Columbia's student senate voted to reinstate the Reserve Officers' Training Corps last Friday in a 51-17 vote. Following the vote, Columbia would discuss the details of a possible ROTC branch on its campus if the military were to express interest in opening one, according to a Friday article in the Columbia Spectator.
Columbia banned ROTC during the Vietnam War and decided to discuss a possible reinstatement of the program after "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed in December, the Spectator reported. Columbia's decision comes on the heels of Harvard's decision last month to reinstate ROTC.
Student Affairs Committee chair Tao Tan called Friday "a great day for America," according to the Spectator article. "We have put behind us a painful disagreement of our past and have taken a step forward toward our shared future," Tan said.
Some members criticized the senate for acting too hastily. "There was a lot of pressure coming from the administration to get this done," Sean Udell, senior class president and president of the Columbia Queer Alliance, told the New York Times. "To me, what this says is that there's an agenda here."
Missing Middlebury student home safe
Pathik Root, a junior from Middlebury college, returned home Saturday night after being detained in a Syrian prison for several weeks, according to an article in the Boston Globe yesterday. Root was reported missing on March 18.
Root had been studying abroad in Egypt but was evacuated during the January protests, according to the Middlebury Campus. He returned to the Middle East in early March to study Arabic at Damascus University.
Root witnessed a protest in the city on March 18. When he took his phone out to take a picture, he was detained by the secret police and thrown into a van, according to the Globe article. Root told the Globe he was mistaken for a CIA official or a journalist, though he repeatedly said he was a student.
He was held in a prison for over two weeks, during which time he was only allowed out for bathroom breaks and was given only bread, potatoes and water, according to the Globe. Though he was not tortured, he heard screams from prisoners in adjacent cells.
Coordinating via a Facebook page, Root's family and friends reached out to government officials and media sources to publicize Root's disappearance. His family confirmed March 26 he had been detained by Syrian police , according to the Middlebury Campus.
Middlebury President Ron Liebowitz emailed the student body early Friday morning with the news that Root had been released, according to a story on the Middlebury College website.
"This experience, as bad as it was, has in no way dampened my interest in these countries, in their cultures and their people," Root told the Globe. "There's a big difference between the government and the people."
A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to Columbia student Sean Udell as a member of the Columbia University Senate. In fact, Udell is the senior class president and president of the Columbia Queer Alliance but is not a Senate member. The Herald regrets the error.
