In Charles Dunlap’s recent article about discrimination against veterans and ROTC, he mentioned Brown as an example of Ivy League discrimination because a “Brown University columnist” had called for the ban of “ROTC criminals”. This is an extremely biased (nearly dishonest) depiction of events. The writer of that article (Peter Makhlouf) was not representing the University, but was rather a Brown student, writing an editorial in the Brown student newspaper — an entity entirely independent from the University, over which the University exercises no control. In addition, Peter’s article was one of many on the topic (with many of the others being strongly in support of ROTC), and was part of an open, campus-wide discussion on expanding the ROTC program. In the end, the program was expanded, so it’s unfortunate that this author twisted around what is actually an example of increased efforts to connect and welcome military-affiliated students at Brown.
Ed. Note: Dunlap’s reply to this letter can be found at the bottom of this post.