The Washington Whispers blog at U.S. News & World Report noted pessimistically on December 27 that fully half of the military’

s youngest officers oppose gays serving in the military. The blog reported that, according to a new survey from West Point scholars, conservative male military academy cadets are especially hostile to the year-old repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).

The survey, published in the journal Armed Forces & Society, reports “the findings show being a cadet is associated with stronger agreement for barring homosexuals from military service.”

The data is part of an ongoing study of students who attend U.S. military service academies, as well as those in civilian schools, and individuals who are enrolled as ROTC cadets. The survey uncovered a large disparity among college students’ attitudes toward gays serving in the armed forces: 41% of ROTC students and 53% of those at military academy cadets oppose gays serving, while those students who do not intend to serve in the military generally support repeal of DADT, with only 13% opposing gays in the military.

The study data does not distinguish between gays serving openly or under the restrictions of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Those restrictions have been in place since 1993.

The differences in student opinions reflect wider societal divisions: during the policy debate over the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the senior commanders in the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed Obama’s decision, citing concerns about service morale. But the highest ranking Pentagon officials, among them the Secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported the president’s plan.

Politics and gender also apparently factored into survey responses, with 70% of those described as “male Republican cadets” supporting DADT, and 44% of “female Republican cadets” also in opposition to gays serving in the military. Only 4.5% of those describing themselves as “female Democrat civilians” oppose gay military service.

As U.S. News & World Report noted, the opposition of service academy and ROTC cadets to gays in the military is “significant,” since “the bulk of military officers come from” these institutions. But, the report concluded, “the study authors found that attitudes change over time. For example, male and female cadets interviewed back in 2002 were more opposed than those surveyed in 2007 by a margin of 9%: 59% [in 2002] compared to 50% [in 2007.]”