As the debate about allowing ROTC to return to campus progresses, it is clear that tension is continuing to build up.

This week, the issue received national media coverage after military veteran and School of General Studies student Anthony Maschek was allegedly jeered by the crowd at the third of the University Senate’s town hall style hearings.

Gavin McGown of transgender rights group Gender Revolution explains what happened at the meeting.

“At the two and a half hour mark, someone received less than polite treatment,” McGown said.

That someone was Maschek. For veteran advocate and GS student Marco Reininger, the incident was troubling.

"Unforturnately, it hasn’t been a very Columbia-like discourse,” Reininger said. “Of course, I was disappointed with the event regarding the treatment of Anthony Maschek, but at the same time I realize it was only a few individuals that engaged in the catcalling and engaged in the heckling.”

McGown, however, does not feel that students intended to heckle Maschek, but were provoked.

“People had been sitting and talking to each other for two and a half hours before that point, and had managed to do so with some passion but with no one interrupting anyone else. At this point, what was said [by Maschek] was not said was not phrased in the most delicate manner. It was phrased provocatively,” McGown said. “[That] doesn’t mean that it was in any way appropriate for people in the audience to have reacted as they did, but nor was what [Maschek] said said with the greatest of respect.”

The exchange between several students and Maschek led many national news pundits to claim that the veteran was being discriminated against due to his involvement with the military. Barry Weinburg of the group Everyone Allied Against Homophobia says this is not the case.

“We have an enormous number of veterans at the School of General Studies who we work very hard to make sure can attend here,” Weinburg said. “So I think the idea that we discriminate is not a real argument, because we don’t.”

Reininger is frustrated by the crowd’s poor treatment those in favor of ROTC, saying that it has not been an ideal venue for free speech.

“I feel that a lot of [comments made by] the people involved in a lot of the discussion have been parallel to what is actually at stake. I feel that a lot of the arguments that were brought up were just warmed up rhetoric,” Reininger said. “I’ve seen some pretty despicable remarks made, especially online, and I wish that the dialogue would be a lot more civil at times.”

However, Reininger believes that the negative moments do not outweigh the positives of the open debate.

“I encourage everyone to stand up and state their opinions,” Reininger said. “That’s what an academic institution like Columbia is there for.”