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COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT

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Articles: Military Recruiting: Student Privacy

Military Recruitment Ignites an Arizona Rhetorical Firefight

Katie Ash, Education Week

September 12, 2007

Exercising his own First Amendment rights, Arizona state schools
Superintendent Tom Horne recently criticized opponents of military
recruitment for targeting students with their message and heard
howls of protest in return.

During the first weeks of school in August, members of several
activist groups including the Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation,
the Arizona Counter Recruitment Coalition, and Parents Against
Violence in Education stood outside Phoenix-area high schools to
distribute preaddressed, postage-paid postcards that would require
military recruiters to take students off their contact lists.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools that receive federal
funding to provide contact information for each student to the U.S.
armed forces. Parents can choose to keep their children's names off the list.

Recruiters' outreach to high school students has been controversial.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Defense, responding to a
lawsuit, clarified what kind of information could be collected and
how students could remove their names from the database. ("Defense
Dept. Settles Suit on Student-Recruiting Database," Jan. 17, 2007.)

Mr. Horne, however, isn't keen on activists walking high school
students through that process. "To have adults teaching students to
be hostile to the military institutions that defend our freedom is
educationally dysfunctional, " the state chief said in a statement. "I
urge these adults to look in the mirror and decide to do something
constructive for education, rather than destructive. "

But his comments earned a tart response from activists.

"Most families had no idea this provision was included in the No
Child Left Behind Act, and when they found out, they were appalled,"
said Linda Brown, the executive director of the Arizona Advocacy
Network Foundation of Phoenix."We will continue to inform students
and parents of their right to privacy."

She said the superintendent distorted the groups' message. "We have
to respect young people's abilities and intelligence, " she said. "If
they're given all the information, [they can] make choices that are
in accordance with their values."

This archive consists of a topically organized selection of articles culled by members of the Counter-Recruitment List Serve from printed publications and web sites. The archive is not complete. We have chosen material relevant to the work of Eugene, Oregon’s Committee for Countering Military Recruitment that we think may be of use to others individuals and groups with similar goals.

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