University of Hawai'i faculty leaders voted yesterday to oppose a $50 million Navy research center planned for the Manoa campus.

The Faculty Senate voted 31-18 after two hours of debate for a resolution asking school administrators to reject what would have been the first such new military research center on an American campus in more than 50 years.

An optional resolution had called for backing the center with a few conditions.

UH interim President David McClain and Manoa campus interim Chancellor Denise Konan must approve the center for it to go to the Board of Regents, possibly by early next year.

Konan, who has said she'd keep an open mind on the issue, declined comment after the vote.

Proponents say the center would bring millions of dollars in research grants to the school. Opponents said the center could disrupt existing programs, set up publication restrictions on research and allow for weapons development on campus.

The faculty group considered voting by secret ballot but agreed to a show of hands as about a dozen protesters wearing green shirts and holding signs stood in the back of the classroom where they met.

Last spring, students, faculty and others protested the proposed University Affiliated Research Center with a peaceful weeklong sit-in at McClain's office.

The protesters argued the research center would further militarize the state, which is already home to several military bases.

At yesterday's meeting, university researcher John Madey, who has worked with the Defense Department on laser technology, urged faculty not to vote for the center. He said it would take away researchers' rights to refuse Navy directives.

"How many of you are prepared to accept an environment in which those are the rules of the game?" he asked.

David Bangert, a professor at the university's business school, said after the vote that he felt the decision was centered on animosity toward the center's attachment to a branch of the military.

"It was not unexpected," said Bangert, because "there's a lot of discomfort with the military right now." He, however, voted for the center, citing overwhelming support from business school professors.

Military funding at the university reached $52.3 million last year, up from $10.3 million in 2000, according to the school's Office of Research Services. Overall research contracts and grants at the university totaled almost $350 million in the last fiscal year.

If established, the center would require some $3 million in startup money and bring in about $50 million in grants over its first five years of operation, school officials have said. It would be expected to become self-supportive in three years.

The Navy has four other centers: at the University of Washington, Pennsylvania State University, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Texas at Austin. The Hawai'i center was first proposed in 2004.