NEW YORK

Columbia ends 40-year ban on ROTC campus presence

Student and faculty leaders at Columbia University have voted to welcome the military’s ROTC program back to campus four decades after it was banned during the Vietnam War peace movement.

The University Senate voted 51-17 with one person abstaining Friday to “explore mutually beneficial relationships with the armed forces of the United States, including participation in the programs of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.”

The vote was reported in The New York Times.

Columbia is the latest in a string of elite Ivy League schools to consider overtures to ROTC following the repeal of the military’s policy banning gays from serving openly, which many universities considered discriminatory.

Harvard University officials announced last month that they would formally recognize the Naval ROTC 40 years after the program was banned, and Yale and Brown universities are considering lifting their bans. ROTC has units at more than 300 campuses nationwide.

Columbia banned ROTC in 1969 amid student outrage over the Vietnam War. The move came during a period of campus unrest that included student strikes and the occupation of a main academic building.

WASHINGTON

Obama’s re-election bid to become official this week

President Obama is about to make one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets official: He wants a second term.

Democratic officials familiar with the president’s plans said Saturday that Obama intends to file papers as early as this week with the Federal Election Commission to launch his 2012 re-election campaign. He also will announce his candidacy to supporters by email and text messages.

The officials asked not to be identified in order to speak before the papers are filed.

That widely anticipated but formal step of registering with the FEC will free Obama to start raising money for the re-election effort, which, as in 2008, will be run from Chicago.

That fundraising already has begun. Obama netted $1.5 million at a Democratic fundraiser in New York’s Harlem this past week. He’s also scheduled to travel this week to headline events in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Obama raised $750 million in 2008.

The president isn’t expected to face a primary challenge.

Numerous Republican governors, former governors and others are laying the groundwork for a presidential bid, but none has entered the race.