Politics & Power Quote by Mike Rogers

Wrapped in the velvet of fairness, this line is really a demand for deference. By framing the military as "any other major employer", Mike Rogers borrows the language of equal access to smuggle in an unequal institution: the armed forces aren’t just another recruiter with a table at the career fair. They are the state’s most consequential instrument, with life-and-death stakes, and that difference is exactly what the sentence tries to blur.

The timing does the heavy lifting. "In our post-9/11 world" functions as a moral solvent: it dissolves debate by invoking a shared trauma and a permanent state of vigilance. It signals that the normal rules of campus politics should be suspended because the country is still, implicitly, under threat. The phrase doesn’t argue; it activates reflexes - patriotism, fear, loyalty - so resistance can be painted as naïve at best, ungrateful at worst.

The key rhetorical move is the minimalist ask: "at least the same access". Who could object to "at least" equality? But the subtext is aimed at universities that restrict or criticize military recruiting, often over issues like discrimination policies, war legitimacy, or the ethics of targeted recruitment. Rogers is positioning higher education not as an independent civic institution with its own values, but as a pipeline obligated to serve national security priorities.

It’s a culture-war bridge: enlist the prestige and talent of universities while implying that dissent is a luxury the post-9/11 era can’t afford.